Listen To Your Heart
by esmtz
Summary: DHT. Ellis knows how much Nick hates him and knows how much of a burden he is to the group so he takes off only to have run into another group of survivors and unbeknownst to him Nick is following right behind him. NXE,FXE. Character Death Suicide Attempt
1. Hate

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

It didn't take Ellis long to figure out that Nick hated him. Even when they first met he knew exactly how Nick felt the moment they looked at each other. Nick's eyes had been filled with hate and Ellis had flinched from both the look he was getting and the nickname he immediately had gotten from Nick; a stupid hick. Ellis had immediately felt isolated from the group since the others had gotten along better with each other then they did with him. Even now after spending a couple of weeks with them he knew that none of them really cared about him especially when he tried to tell them a story about his best friend, Keith. He was always being interrupted and told not to continue and he understood that they were in a zombie apocalypse and all, but shit couldn't they at least let him finish one of his stories? He also hated the fact that they were treating him like a kid who didn't know better. Rochelle and Coach were always telling Nick to be nicer to him and Ellis frowned thinking about telling them to stop acting like he was a victim, but because of how he was raised he never once brought it up how much he didn't like them always taking his side over Nick's. What made him feel worse was how much Nick kept complaining about how Ellis always needed to be looked after since he was always getting himself into trouble with the zombies.

"First it was that fucking Charger and then it was a fucking Jockey. Jesus Christ, Ellis do you even know how to survive?" Nick had yelled at him as Rochelle was patching him up in one of the safe houses.

"Nick, leave the poor kid alone. It ain't his fault the zombies have taken a liking to him." Coach told him glaring at him as he finished stitching up a wound on his right leg as he was sitting down on the ground his back against the wall.

Rochelle sighed not taking her eyes off of Ellis's wounds that were on his back as they sat on the couch close to the door to exit the safe room.

"We were all in trouble back there, Nick. With the tank showing up it's no wonder Ellis was distracted when the charger ran into him especially since the tank was on your ass." Rochelle replied.

Ellis was looking at the ground and heard the disappointment in Coach's voice.

"Well y'all looks like we're going with only one health kit again." Coach sighed.

"Thanks to Ellis who used up our last one!" Nick said.

"Nick, you had to use one too so shut up!" Rochelle replied angrily as she turned her head to look at him.

Ellis turned his head to look at Nick and had started to say that he was sorry, but Nick interrupted him.

"Don't even start you stupid hick. I don't want to hear it because all you'll do is start up one of your stupid Keith stories!" Nick said glaring angrily at him who immediately closed his mouth and looked away completely hurt.

"Nick, you went too far!" Coach growled as he slowly stood up careful not to tear his stitches he just put in on his leg.

Nick rolled his eyes and look at him.

"Coach, before you tear your stitches sit back down. We can't afford one of our best shooters to be hurting when we leave from here." Nick told him.

Ellis closed his eyes as he felt Rochelle finish healing him and he quickly got up and went to one of the rooms. As he closed the door he could already hear the others arguing again and he sighed as he went towards the bed to get some rest. That night Ellis couldn't sleep right away because he kept hearing Nick's voice in his head and he felt himself tense up. He looked to his side to see if anyone else had come in yet since there were only two rooms in the safe house and saw that no one else had went in yet.

'Nick's right. Why do I always hafta be the one using up everyone's health kits?' Ellis sighed looking at the ceiling and pulling the covers over him 'it's been what three weeks now and all I've done is been more of a burden then an asset to the others.' Ellis thought of the time he accidentally shot Nick and tried to heal him, but Nick refused right away and instead had Coach heal him. 'I'm no good to these guys. I was never taught how to survive something like this let alone use guns.'

Ellis had been raised by his mother all by herself since his dad had bailed on them years ago when he was only five. He had no other family besides his mom and the few friends that he had like Keith and Dave.

'They had been planning to take me out to teach me how to use guns, but then this stupid zombie apocalypse started.' Ellis's eyes started filling up with tears as he remembered coming across his mother's and Dave's dead bodies just before he met up with Nick and them. He hadn't seen Keith anywhere so he could only hope that the last person who cared about him was still alive somewhere looking for him.

Ellis reached for his hat that was on the table next to the bed and looked at it and that's when he finally heard someone approach the door. Ellis put his hat back down and turned to face the other way as the door opened. Ellis's eyes went wide as he heard Nick's voice and he felt his heart pumping hard in his chest.

"I fucking hate you guys right about now!" Nick yelled.

Ellis tried to hear what the others were saying, but he couldn't.

"Whatever, next time one of you guys have to share the room with him." Nick sighed closing the door.

'Oh you gotta be kidding me!' Ellis asked feeling himself start to turn red 'It's bad enough he's in my head and now he's gunna be in the same bed as me? Who's idea was that?'

"You better be fucking asleep, Ellis." Nick said as he pulled the covers up and quickly got underneath them and tried to keep his body from touching Ellis's as he covered himself up.

There was silence for a few minutes before Ellis swallowed.

"I'm sorry, Nick. You know for causing y'all a lot of trouble. I know how much y'all hate having me around because its like having to look after some little kid right?" Ellis whispered.

He felt Nick move obviously feeling uncomfortable. Ellis looked out the window trying to keep himself from crying right there.

"You've never once healed me and whenever Rochelle or Coach heals me it's almost like a pain having to do it at all." Ellis continued remembering the look on Coach's face when he had to be the one to heal him.

Nick didn't respond and for once he didn't seem to know how even if he wanted to.

"I also know that you don't want my help either since I'm nuthin but a 'stupid hick' to you and I just wanted you to know that I don't hate you." Ellis swallowed again knowing full well that what he was feeling for Nick was far from hate, "I'm also sorry how Coach and Ro are defending me when they shouldn't because you were right, Nick. I don't know how to survive in a world like this and I also need to apologize for accidentally shooting you before since you know you didn't want me to say anything before or hell you probably want me to shut up right now right?" Ellis asked, "Well I promise you, Nick that as soon as we get rescued I'll get mahself as far away from you as possible. You ain't the only one who said they hated me so I'm used to it."

There was silence between them again and Ellis curiously slightly turned his head to glance at Nick who was facing towards the door. Ellis didn't expect that Nick would reply so he turned his head back and snuggled inside the covers of the bed and closed his eyes. For a second he thought he heard Nick say something, but figured that he was just hearing things and tried to get some sleep.

Author's note: Hey I know it's been awhile. I wasn't sure if I was going to make another L4D story or not, but I decided I should. This is going to be another NickxEllis story, but will also contain FrancisxEllis. I don't even know if im going to continue or not since I'm really not so sure about this story because I have no idea where to take it and I've been busy playing Gears of War 2 to get my level to 100 before next April when Gears of War 3 comes out. Right now I'm working on being an 84. If you've read my previous story you know you'll probably want to review at least once in awhile if you like this story enough for me to try and continue it you don't have to if you don't want since this time it depends if I'm not too lazy to stop writing and if my laptop doesn't decide to die on me. It'll probably be discontinued if I don't write for a couple of months just so you know.


	2. Taking Off

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

The next morning, Ellis didn't look at Nick or even tried telling his teammates one of his Keith stories. In fact he was quiet the entire time as they all finished eating what they were able to find in the safe house, which was mostly just cereal, and watched as Coach reluctantly strapped the med kit to his back already knowing that he would most likely use it to heal Ellis since it was his turn to do so if Ellis got into more trouble.

"Ellis, sweetie is everything alright?" Rochelle asked looking at him as they all picked up pain pills or an adrenaline.

Ellis nodded turning his head slightly to look at her, still trying to avoid eye contact with Nick who for some reason also hadn't said a word since last night.

"I'm fine, Ro. Don't you worry about me now." Ellis said almost quietly as he made his way to the door where Coach was now waiting for them before opening it.

"You've been quiet lately. It's not like you to be like this. You usually would be outgoing and start telling us a story about your friend." Rochelle frowned.

Ellis shrugged holding his gun at the ready as soon as Coach opened the door.

"What's really weird is how quiet Nick is also being right now." Coach said looking back at him and raised an eyebrow.

Nick rolled his eyes as he walked past Ellis and Coach, Ellis with his head down.

"Whatever. Can't I have some time to myself?" Nick asked glancing at Ellis as he past him.

"You know what? Forget I mentioned it. I swear it's almost like something happened between the two of you last night." Coach said as they all walked out the door and he looked between Nick and Ellis.

Ellis looked at Coach and before he could stop himself he looked directly at Nick and felt himself start to feel slightly sick because it hurt too much to be around him. Nick noticed and sighed.

"What's your problem, overalls?" Nick asked annoyed.

Rochelle walked up to Coach and whispered in his ear.

"Maybe its best if you just drop the subject, Coach. You know how much Nick hated it when we forced him to bunk with Ellis." Rochelle said.

"Well he's gotta learn to deal with it because I ain't sleeping with the kid and you being a girl, that's not right." Coach whispered back.

Rochelle sighed and nodded.

"I know."

"Nuthin, man I just feel a little sick that's all." Ellis responded.

"Great time to get sick, Ellis. Really. You fucking better not throw up while we're trying to keep ourselves alive. That would waste the fucking last health pack we've got just because you were too busy puking to see a hunter get on you or something. You're going to get us all killed." Nick told him angrily.

Ellis swallowed staring directly into Nick's cold eyes and slowly nodded.

"Yeah, alright." Ellis said as he kept swallowing down the feeling that he was going to throw up and started looking around for any sign of the infected as they started making their way down the road.

"Well, Nick's back to normal." Rochelle said glaring at him.

Ellis knew the reason why he was feeling sick. It was because of how much stress he was under because of Nick, but despite that he wanted to make sure that Nick was going to get out of here alright before he decided to leave, but ended up deciding that, that might not be a good idea.

'Man I don't think I'm gunna make it to whatever the hell's gettin us out of here. First chance I get I might as well take off so as to not put these guys in danger.' Ellis thought looking around at all the buildings 'this town is small, but it ain't small enough for me to not lose sight of the others. I bet they wont notice when I'm gone hell I bet Nick even would be real happy to see that he doesn't have to worry about losing health packs anymore.' Ellis thought sadly.

As soon as they were a good distance away from the safe house they immediately heard a couple of the special infected.

"Do you guys hear that?" Rochelle asked.

"I reckon that might be a hunter." Ellis said holding his gun up in front of him shaking slightly.

"Of course it's a hunter you dumb shit!" Nick said getting agitated.

"Now is not the time, Nick. Focus on killing the zombies now!" Coach told him as a small horde started to surround them.

For a few minutes they were able to kill off whatever came at them including the hunter who had snuck up on them and tried jumping on Coach, but was knocked away and quickly killed. It wasn't until someone accidentally shot a nearby car with alarm did things get bad.

"Goddammit! Ellis was that you?" Nick yelled as tons more zombies were on their ass now.

"Nick, it wasn't him! It was me alright! I'm sorry!" Rochelle cried.

Zombies started getting in between each of them so they all were busy trying to fight off whatever they could.

"Y'all I see a tank!" Coach yelled.

Ellis continued to push and look around for where it was at and saw that it was headed his way throwing zombies out of the way in the process of getting to him. Luckily just as it got to him the zombies that were in his way were now out, because Coach was finally able to toss out a boomer vile on the tank and the zombies were now trying to attack the tank.

"Move, people!" Coach yelled as they all started running and shooting at the tank.

Ellis, however, was forced into going a different direction as the tank hit him away from the others and he felt himself go through a window of a building. He hissed in pain as he felt glass enter in his skin and the first thing he thought was 'not again.' He slowly tried to sit up and winced in pain already knowing that his back was bleeding again with fresh new wounds. He also noticed that he wasn't wearing his hat and he started to panic as he looked around for it.

'Shit, where did it go?' Ellis thought to himself.

Ellis realized he couldn't stay where he was at as he heard the tank getting closer to him again and could barely make out the words 'shoot it!' from who he could only assume was Coach. He struggled to his feet and gasped from the amount of pain he was in and started limping to the back of the building to escape out the back door and just as he reached it he threw up.

"Aw, man. Nick's gunna kill me." Ellis said to himself as soon as he had finished but then thought that this might be the best time to leave.

He could barely hear the others call out his name as Ellis took out his adrenaline and quickly took it and started trying to get as far from the others as possible. It felt like forever before he made it almost outside of town and he had to stop and catch his breath.

'Ok. I don't think they're gunna be able to follow me now.' Ellis said and looked behind him and then sighed 'oh hell no I'm leaving a trail of my own blood for them to follow. I guess it's ok the evac station is in town so I don't think they'll follow me at all especially Nick. Shit this would be a lot easier with a health kit.'

Ellis frowned realizing that he hadn't run into any other zombies while trying to get away from his teammates. He didn't know if he should take it as a good sign or a bad one. All he knew was that he was bleeding out pretty fast and his vision started to darken. He was barely able to make out what looked like a place that almost looked like it could be a safe house. There were tons of motorcycles outside the small building and Ellis limped all the way until he got inside. Once he did he let unconsciousness take over as he fell to the floor. Back with Nick and the others they all had been searching for Ellis as soon as they had finished killing the tank and the rest of the zombies which had included a charger ramming right into Coach and a smoker trying to drag Nick away from the other two. They had watched as the tank went towards Ellis and tried to kill the thing before it got to him. They hadn't seen, because of the smoker and charger, that Ellis had been thrown through a window so they were looking around the area where they did last see him.

"How much do you want to bet that Ellis needs to be healed again?" Nick sighed.

Rochelle looked at him.

"Nick, why are you always thinking about Ellis?" Rochelle asked.

"Ro, It's impossible not to when he's always needing to be healed." Nick told her.

"Uh so? I always need to be healed too not as much as Ellis and I don't hear you complaining every time I need to be healed or even when Coach needs to be. So why on earth do you care so much about him?" Rochelle raised an eyebrow.

"Ok for one he's using up a lot of health packs that we could have saved for later and two he sure as hell doesn't know what he's doing and three…" Nick stopped in mid sentence as he remembered Ellis talking to him last night and he ran his hand through his hair starting to feel guilty.

Coach and Rochelle looked at him wondering why he suddenly cut himself off. Nick suddenly had his eyes glued on something and went towards one of the buildings. Coach and Rochelle frowned and followed him.

"Uh, guys? Was the window here broken before?" Nick asked.

"Why on earth would we pay attention to that, Nick?" Coach asked as he and Rochelle stood next to him.

Rochelle gasped her eyes going wide as she carefully stepped through the hole in the window and went inside and saw blood on the floor.

"What is it baby girl?" Coach asked.

Rochelle didn't respond as she looked next to her and saw Ellis's hat on the floor. She picked it up and showed it to them.

"This is bad." Coach said worriedly looking at the hat to the blood on the floor, "that tank must have thrown him through the window and somehow Ellis managed to get away."

Nick was turning white from all the blood and glass that was on the ground. He also then just realized why Ellis wasn't there and he found himself start to get anxious and worried.

'Shit I didn't think he'd really take off like that especially in the condition he's probably in right now he could have gone anywhere!' Nick thought as he followed to see if the blood left a path. It ended up leading him to the back of the building where he saw vomit and saw that the blood did indeed leave a trail 'Damn, Ellis.' Nick was shocked and horrified to see how much blood Ellis had already lost.

Coach and Rochelle walked behind him looking extremely worried.

"Who knows how far he's gotten. Knowing his luck he's either dead or is bleeding to death right about now." Rochelle whispered.

"Should we go look for him?" Coach asked.

"What the fuck kind of question is that? He can't survive on his own of course we're going to go look for him!" Nick snapped at him.

"Since when did you care about the boy, Nick?" Coach asked.

"I don't ok…I just….we need him to keep our asses alive alright?" Nick responded.

"But you said he was going to get us killed remember? After all you're the one who told him that." Rochelle said.

Nick was turning red.

"What exactly are you guys implying?" Nick asked.

"Oh nothing just that you care more then you're letting on. In your own screwed up way you do, but you don't want to admit it so instead you constantly act like you hate him which by the way good job for chasing him away." Rochelle said.

"Ok, first I don't like him and second I wasn't the only reason why he fucking decided to take off!" Nick said angrily.

"How do you know that he took off, Nick? He could still be around here somewhere looking for us." Coach asked.

"You do like him, Nick otherwise you wouldn't be turning as red as you are right now." Rochelle giggled at the look on his face.

"Whatever, I'm going to go look for him right now so are you guys coming or what?" Nick asked.

"Like we have a choice. Let's go." Rochelle said as they started following Ellis's blood.

Author's note: Not much to say right now, but if I do somehow finish this story I will post up a poll asking which of my three l4d stories you all liked best if you read them all. I'm sorry if the characters seem out of character especially Ellis since I don't really know how to do his accent so yeah.


	3. Francis, Zoey, and Louis

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

Ellis could barely make out voices in the distance as he started groaning. As they got closer he started to panic and immediately shot up and looked around thinking Nick and the others had found him already. He immediately noticed that he had been lying on a couch in a totally different building and then realized that he didn't recognize any of the voices he was hearing.

"Do you really think he's alone, Francis?" A girl asked.

"I don't know, maybe." The guy responded.

"There might have been a chance that he was separated from whoever he was with." Another guy said.

"It doesn't matter. Good thing is we found someone else who can help us get out of this crap hole." The guy called Francis had said.

Ellis frowned as he got off the couch, wincing slightly as he was still in pain, and went towards the door that he was hearing their voices from.

"Francis, we only just lost Bill and already you want to replace him?" The girl asked slightly horrified.

Ellis's eyes went wide.

'Holy shit they lost someone?'

Francis sighed.

"Zoey, it was already bad enough having to deal with a bunch of zombies with just the four of us. If it's just us three we'd be in trouble." Francis told her.

"Sorry, Zoey, but I have to agree with Francis on this one. We could use the kids help and besides I get the feeling he's got nowhere else to go." The other guy told her.

"Alright if you guys insist." Zoey said.

Ellis quickly went to sit back down on the couch as the door opened. All three came into the room and looked at him.

"Well, looks like he's awake. How are you feeling?" The third guy asked.

"I'm fine I guess." Ellis responded looking at all three of them curiously.

"You were bleeding all over the place when we found you. You had glass almost completely inside your back so it took awhile for me to patch you up." Zoey told him.

Ellis got up and went to the bathroom, took off his shirt and turned around so he could see his back in the window. Zoey blushed slightly and Francis couldn't stop staring at Ellis's body that Louis slapped him on the head.

"Hey, what was that for?" Francis asked glaring at him.

"It's not polite to stare like that. I'm sorry we forgot to introduce ourselves. My name is Louis, the girl is Zoey and this guy," Louis said pointing at Francis, "is Francis."

"I could have told him that." Francis mumbled.

Ellis put his shirt back on, much to Zoey's and Francis's disappointment, and turned to face them with a small smile on his face.

"I'm Ellis, it's a pleasure to meet all of you and thanks for patching me back up." Ellis replied frowning slightly.

"Hey, it was no problem. Something the matter, Ellis?" Louis asked.

"I'm sorry I made y'all waste a health kit. It was yer guy's health kit to use on one of you." Ellis said.

All three of them looked at him in surprise.

"Ellis, you needed it badly so don't worry about it. We chose to use it on you otherwise you probably would have bled to death." Zoey replied looking at him worried.

"We didn't want that to happen." Francis told him.

Ellis smiled at that and rubbed the back of his neck.

"So, uh how did y'all find me anyway?" Ellis asked.

Louis rolled his eyes.

"Stupid ass thing. Francis wanted to check out a bunch of motorcycles as we were about to head on out of here." Louis said.

"Hey, they're not stupid, Louis they're badass!" Francis responded glaring at him even more.

"Whatever, man. Anyway as we got near, Zoey noticed a trail of blood leading into the building and we saw that you were unconscious and on the floor bleeding heavily from your back with quite a few pieces of glass in your back." Louis said.

"That's when Francis carried you on his back all the way over here. It's not a safe house so we've had to keep watch. Plus there's a vehicle here that we could actually use to get us out of this town." Zoey sighed as Francis looked at her.

"Hey, we could have used the motorcycles!" Francis said.

"Uh, no we couldn't, Francis." Zoey said.

Ellis chucked.

'Man that dude's funny.' Ellis thought and then started looking at his arms 'it's awesome how many tattoos he's got.'

Francis grinned at him.

"So are you alone, Ellis or were you with other people?" Louis asked.

Ellis's smile faded as he looked down at the ground.

"I was with three other people, but they kept acting and treating me like I was a burden and was going to get them killed if I stayed with them." Ellis quietly said.

All three looked at him in shock.

"What?" Zoey asked horrified.

"So, you just took off on them?" Louis asked.

Ellis nodded.

"Kinda yeah. I remember a horde of zombies coming at us and a tank managed to get me away from them and sent me through a window of a building."

Francis winced.

"That shit had to hurt, man." Francis said.

"Wait, so how did you get away? You were badly hurt." Zoey asked still unable to believe that anyone would treat Ellis that way.

"I used an adrenaline. It gave me a temporary boost so I could get away." Ellis said.

"How were you not attacked by zombies after that?" Louis asked completely surprised, "They could have easily taken you down."

Ellis shrugged.

"I don't know. For once I didn't run into any more trouble."

"Well, at least we're glad you're ok. You didn't wake up for quite some time that we started to worry." Louis said.

Ellis looked at him.

"Uh, how long was I out?"

"Since we found you a couple of hours and before that I honestly can't say." Louis replied.

"So, uh, Ellis we were kinda wondering if you wanted to join up with us. You see we lost a member of our team recently and we definitely need some help." Francis said rubbing his head, "You know seeing as you have no where else to go…"

"Francis!" Zoey glared at him.

"It's ok, Zoey." Ellis told her and then looked at Francis who was looking at him nervously, "I guess I will if it ain't too much trouble because I would hate to be a burden to you guys as well."

"Hey, it's no trouble at all really!" Francis grinned, "We've got plenty of health kits right guys and other stuff that we can use to get past all these zombies."

"Yeah, right." Louis looked at him raising an eyebrow.

"Thanks y'all. So just curious why are you leaving this town when there's an evac station here?" Ellis asked.

"Why? Good question I would like to know myself." Zoey said looking at Francis who shrugged.

"What? I got a bad feeling that Zoey's going to kill the driver or pilot and besides I've been reading what people have been posting on the walls and they all say to go to California. I have no idea why though." Francis said.

Louis sighed.

"It might be because that's where help is going to be man."

"Maybe, but I'm still unsure about that place too. You know damn well the military ain't gunna help us let alone anyone else." Francis said, "What they'll probably do is shoot us the moment we set foot on their ground."

"Why?" Ellis asked.

"Because they'll think we're infected or we're carrying the infection and we're just immune to it." Francis sighed.

"Well, we gotta do something, Francis. We can't just stay here." Zoey said getting tired of having to repeat herself over and over again about the pilot being a zombie.

"She's right, man. We're dead if we stay here." Louis told him.

Francis raised his hands.

"Ok fine I say we head to California." Francis said.

"When are we heading out?" Ellis asked.

"First we'll wait until you're in less pain, Ellis because it looks like you're in pain from standing." Zoey said looking at him.

Ellis shook his head.

"I'm fine, Zoey. We can go whenever."

"No, Ellis. She's right. We'll stay here until you're feeling better then we'll head out besides I think we need to fill up that car first." Francis told him.

Zoey looked at him in surprise.

'Wow he's actually agreeing with me on something?' Zoey thought to herself.

"Well, alright then." Ellis said as Francis put a hand on his shoulder and lead him to the closest bedroom and made him lie down on it.

"Sorry we didn't bring you in here right away. We just figured that it would be best to patch you up first before you bled out." Francis said apologetically, "You probably didn't like being on the couch."

"Nah man I'm good, but thanks though." Ellis said smiling at him as he lied down.

"No problem. Just call out if you need Zoey to get you something. Louis and I will be right back. We're going to go get some gas for the car." Francis said as he left the room to go look for some gas with Louis.

"Will you be alright by yourself, Zoey since Ellis is resting?" Louis asked.

"I'll be fine you guys go look for that gas. I'll make sure nothing gets in." Zoey said with her gun in her hands.

Both guys nodded and left. It had taken awhile before Nick, Rochelle, and Coach had made their way to where all the motorcycles were at.

"It looks like Ellis managed to get himself into that building." Rochelle said sighing with relief.

"Uh, he does know what a safe house looks like right?" Nick asked as they went inside the building.

"Of course he does, Nick. He ain't that dumb." Coach said as they saw a pool of blood on the floor but no Ellis.

"Dammit!" Nick cursed.

"Well, he's not here anymore. There's no way he could have left already judging by the fact that there's a lot of blood over here. He must have passed out." Rochelle said worried.

"But if that's the case where is he?" Nick asked.

"Hey, don't yell at me!" Rochelle told him.

"Quit fighting you two alright? Worst case scenario is that the infected got him, but if they did they wouldn't have dragged his body off." Coach said.

"You want to know why, Coach? It would have been because they turned him!" Nick said.

"You know that's not going to happen because he's immune!" Rochelle replied.

"Well, then it's not the infected is it?" Nick asked sighing.

"No so my next guess is he either had the strength to keep going or there were other survivors out here besides us." Coach replied.

"What are the chances of other survivors?" Rochelle asked.

"Close to zero." Nick told her, "Looks like someone's going to have to repopulate the earth with you, Rochelle."

Rochelle gave Nick a dirty look.

"Nick, why do you have to go and piss everyone off?" Coach asked sighing, "Look I honestly don't think Ellis could have walked off by himself for this long. I honest to god believe that someone helped him."

"Well, that's a relief." Rochelle said smiling slightly.

"I have to see it to believe it." Nick said

"Well you got your wish, Nick because it looks like there's more blood leading out of this building." Coach said as he saw more blood.

Rochelle opened her mouth to say something, but Nick immediately knew what she was going to say.

"He's not dead alright? Once we catch up with him I'm going to give him a beating of his life for scaring us like that!" Nick growled as he followed the blood.

'Scaring you is more like it.' Rochelle thought shaking her head as she and Coach continued to follow behind him.

Author's note: Normally I wouldn't have updated this chapter and the last one so soon, but hey if the stories discontinued I might as well post at least three chapters for you guys to read. I probably won't update till next weekend so as to not finish the story so quickly and doing it every night would kind of be a pain so yeah. I'll try to make this story last as long as I can but no promises. I have a feeling the most in character I'm doing is Nick which for some reason I find really easy to do lmao. Also sorry if I accidentally misspelled something or whatever. Once I start writing a chapter I don't always catch what I'm misspelling or whatever it is I'm doing wrong. Yeah I'm too much into the story to notice so my bad XD.


	4. What Hurts The Most

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

It had taken some time to get as much gas as they could find since occasionally Francis and Louis had run into some of the infected, but they were able to take them down with hardly any cuts or scratches as they managed to finally get the gas cans back to the car.

"About time guys. It took you long enough. I was beginning to think that you guys might have been in trouble and had gone too far for me to hear." Zoey said as soon as she saw them head towards the car and placed the gas next to it.

"Sorry about that, Zoey. We were attacked a couple of times by the infected and then Francis here accidentally shot some of the cans so we had to look for some more otherwise we would have been back here earlier." Louis told her.

"Hey, I'm sorry ok, Louis? I was just trying to kill a boomer that looked like was about to vomit on us." Francis replied.

Zoey sighed shaking her head.

"So, are you guys alright? Did anything come by here?" Louis asked.

"We're fine. Ellis is still resting and I kept my guard up and there were no signs of any of the infected." Zoey told him.

"That's good." Louis smiled at her.

Zoey frowned slightly.

"I guess, but I'm starting to wonder if the infected are even in this area at all."

"So? That's a good thing!" Francis told her.

Louis punched him on the shoulder and sighed.

"What?" Francis asked looking at both of them.

"Francis, don't you find this a little strange at all?" Louis asked already knowing his answer.

"No and who cares? This just means we can get out of here safely!" Francis replied.

"Well, let's just hurry up and fill up the car. Someone should go and wake up Ellis now." Zoey said and started to move to go back inside the house.

Francis rushed past her making her stop in her tracks and sigh.

"Well, I was going to do it, but I guess you can do it instead." Zoey said quietly to herself.

Ellis was already awake, but was still lying down on the bed wondering if Francis and Louis had returned yet.

'It's takin them along time to bring back that gas. I wonder what's keepin them.' Ellis thought 'I hope they're not in trouble or nuthin.'

Just as Ellis started to sit up, the door busted open making Ellis jump in surprise and turn to face the door.

"Well, you're awake already! Here I thought you were still sleeping." Francis grinned as he noticed Ellis's startled expression, "Sorry about that, man. Didn't mean to surprise you like that."

Ellis sighed with relief and smiled at him.

"It's cool. I'm just glad to see that yer back finally." Ellis told him.

"Yeah, sorry we got held up." Francis said, "Zoey said that we should wake you up now because I guess we're just about ready to get going. All we need to do is fill the car up with gas."

"Do y'all need any help with that?" Ellis asked as Francis went to him and helped him stand up.

"Nah besides we couldn't find that many so we're going to have to find more while we're on the road." Francis told him.

"It took you a couple of hours and you couldn't find that many?" Ellis asked looking at him.

"Aw, shut up." Francis said blushing slightly as Ellis started laughing.

"Well, hey I'm just sayin that I coulda helped you bring back more." Ellis told him.

"We actually were, but Francis shot them." Louis was heard outside of the room.

"Dammit, Louis!" Francis yelled at him as he helped Ellis out of the room and towards the car.

Zoey already started filling the car up with gas as Louis went back inside to get whatever he thought they would need on the ride all the way to California. Francis rolled his eyes as he opened the back passenger door for Ellis and helped him to sit inside and then went for a gas can.

"Louis is actually making you do the hard work?" Francis asked shaking his head and started pouring the gas into the car as soon as Zoey was done with the one she already put in.

"No, I decided that I would do it while he goes and get us some food and drinks from the house. I know you guys don't get along, especially after Bill was killed, but do you have to make it sound like he isn't helping us?" Zoey asked looking at him.

"Zoey, don't bring up Bill again and yes and you want to know why? It's because he's become more of an ass now then he was before!" Francis replied.

Ellis's eyes went wide as he looked at Francis and Zoey. Zoey sighed.

"Francis, if it wasn't for him you would be dead."

"HE LEFT BILL TO DIE! I was trying to go back for him and all Louis was doing was trying to get us to leave! Bill was right there, Zoey and you and I both know that we could have gotten him out of there!" Francis roared making both Zoey and Ellis flinch.

"Francis, there were just too many zombies blocking our way to get to him and the tanks had already shown up that there was nothing that we could have done to help him." Zoey whispered.

"LOUIS HAD A FUCKING PIPE BOMB! He could have used it so we could have gotten Bill out of there!" Francis responded angrily.

"The tanks would have gotten to us before we could get to him. They were just too close to us." Zoey swallowed and looked down guiltily.

"You know what? Fuck you, Francis. I fucking saved yours and Zoey's lives by getting you guys into that helicopter. Even Bill knew that he wasn't going to make it and he shook his head when you guys tried to go to him. He didn't want you guys getting yourselves killed for him so excuse me for at least saving two of my teammates!" Louis yelled bringing with him bottles of water and some fruit in a bag and put them in the car before getting up close and personal with Francis.

"Guys, please you shouldn't be doing this not now! You could alert the horde with how loud you guys are being!" Zoey told them looking from one to the other.

"In doing so you let Bill die!" Francis growled clenching his fists.

"There was no other choice, Francis! There were just too many of them!" Louis told him.

"Really? Well I guess I can say that when you're the one who's about to die. I fucking hate you, Louis." Francis said.

There was an awkward silence as Francis and Louis just stood there glaring at each other.

'Shit, compared to these guys I had it good with Nick.' Ellis swallowed.

Zoey sighed.

"Well, now you've done it. Looks like someone's found us." Zoey said.

Ellis looked in the direction that Zoey was looking at and Ellis was completely shocked to find that Nick and the others had found him. Well they were actually looking at Francis and Louis so he assumed that they hadn't seen him.

"Uh y'all can we go now?" Ellis asked his voice just above a whisper as he slowly backed up into the car so he could actually sit in it and try to hide from the others.

"Sure we can go as long as these guys stop their staring contest!" Zoey said as she got between the two of them.

Neither Francis nor Louis spoke another word to each other as Francis made his way on the other side of the car to sit next to Ellis and Louis made his way to the driver's seat. Zoey was just about to get in the front passengers seat when she heard someone yell out Ellis's name. Ellis groaned and sunk in his seat.

"Are they the people you were talking about, Ellis?" Zoey asked.

Ellis nodded as Francis rolled his eyes.

"Terrific."

"Ellis, sweetie there you are!" Rochelle said as she made her way to Ellis's side of the car and smiled at him, "We were worried about you."

Ellis rubbed the back of his neck and looked towards Francis as he felt Rochelle lean towards him and give him a hug.

"It's good to see that yer doin alright there, Ellis." Coach said and looked at Francis, Zoey and Louis and grinned, "So I was right that Ellis had help from other survivors. Thanks for helping the boy out."

"Yeah no problem." Zoey said starting to feel a bit awkward as she got in the car, closed the door, and then opened the window, "I'm sorry normally we'd be talkative and introduce ourselves and all, but…"

"Yeah, we heard sorry about that." Coach told her.

Francis was glaring at someone and Ellis already knew who it was as he felt himself turn bright red as Rochelle let go of him and was immediately trying to be dragged out of the car.

"Overalls, what are you doing with them? Come on let's go we're wasting precious time here." Nick said having both of his hands on Ellis's arm and was pulling him out of the car.

Francis got out of the car, slammed the door, and walked over to Nick.

"Let go of him already. He isn't with you guys anymore." Francis told him.

Nick glared at him.

"What the fuck are you talking about? Ellis is with us."

"No, he's with us now. I asked him if he wanted to join up with us and he said yes." Francis smirked at the look on Nick's face.

Nick was shocked as he looked from Francis down to Ellis who was still managing to stay in the car.

"Ellis?" Nick asked.

"It's true, Nick. Y'all don't have nuthin to worry about anymore. I told you last night that I was leavin. I also meant what I said, man. I don't hate you for not wanting me around." Ellis whispered the last part still refusing to look at Nick.

"Wait, don't you guys know that there's an evac station here? Where are you guys going?" Rochelle asked looking at them and then at Ellis sadly.

"California, only because we think there might be actual safety out there and not some trap leading us into another infected city or town." Zoey told her.

"But, we're still not so sure." Louis said looking out behind him towards Ellis's open door where he could see Rochelle.

"Plus, Zoey's got a thing for killing pilots so best not to risk it." Francis said.

"Heh, so does Nick actually." Coach said.

Nick ignored him as he continued to look at Ellis and still hadn't let go of Ellis's arm.

"Are you serious, Ellis?" Nick asked.

Ellis was tempted to look at Nick since he sounded genuinely hurt, but continued to look the other way and nodded.

"Yeah, Nick I am. Y'all might want to get to the station sooner rather then later cause I don't think that chopper or whatever is gunna still be waiting for you for long." Ellis told him.

"But, Ellis…you're still hurt and what about your hat?" Rochelle asked almost ready to cry as she held out his hat.

Ellis turned to face her and immediately regretted it as soon as he saw the look on Nick's face.

'He seriously does look hurt, but why?' Ellis thought to himself.

Ellis swallowed and shook his head.

"Keep it and don't worry about me. Zoey already patched me up." Ellis almost felt like he couldn't breathe. It was killing him having to leave Nick knowing how much he liked him and knowing that he was having to let him go.

'It's better this way. At least this way he'll live.' Ellis thought as he took a deep breath in and let it out.

Ellis quickly threw his arms around Nick and hugged him tight. Nick hadn't expected it and was completely surprised.

"I'm gunna miss you so much, Nick. Just promise me you won't die out here alright?" Ellis said as he reluctantly let go and roughly pulled his arm away from Nick's grasp.

Francis picked up the rest of the gas cans they didn't use and put them in the trunk. Then he went back to his side of the car and got back in. Both he and Ellis closed their doors and Louis started driving them out of the town. Nick, Rochelle, and Coach watched until the car was no longer in sight.

"Find some gas and a car." Nick suddenly said making Rochelle and Coach look at him.

"Are you serious, Nick? You can't mean…what about the evac station?" Coach asked.

"Fuck getting rescued. I'm going after Ellis." Nick told him.

Rochelle and Coach looked at him in surprise.

"Seriously?" Rochelle asked.

"Now!" Nick said looking at them.

"Uh, right. How much you want to bet they took the last gas cans?" Coach asked.

"Ever heard of a gas station? They might not have had money on them, but I still do." Nick replied pulling out his wallet.

"You mean the money you stole from before?" Rochelle looked at him.

"Whatever just hurry up and find a car and whatever source of gas you can find!" Nick said getting annoyed as he pocketed his wallet.

"This might take awhile." Rochelle said and all three started looking for a car.

Author's note: Good news this story might be longer then what I first thought. Second I'm thinking of planning of killing someone else off plus an attempt of suicide so this will make the story longer so yeah. I don't know why but I have a thing for drownings or almost drownings if you look at almost any of my stories it almost always includes a water scene. This time there will be no bringing back people from the dead so yeah sorry. I guess it wasn't a good idea to wait this long to update. I almost got lazy to the point of not doing it so next time I won't wait so long or at least I'll try not to. I'm glad some people are into this story so it makes it a little easier to keep going. Anyway I wanted to say thank you to the reviewers so far. Even though i don't expect you guys to I'm still very grateful for your feedback. I just hope I don't somehow get you guys uninterested in the story because that would suck losing readers T_T.


	5. Chasing After Him

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

It had been easy enough to find a car. The only problem was finding any source of gas in which Nick, Rochelle, and Coach were still looking even after an hour passed.

"Goddammit this is taking to damn fucking long just to find some gas!" Nick yelled after coming out of another empty store.

"I told you, Nick. Those guys might have taken the last of it." Coach replied still looking around.

"Plus I haven't seen any sign of a gas station anywhere so unless you guys have a better idea." Rochelle sighed

Nick growled.

"Well, I did see a gas station a ways back when we were attacked by the horde of zombies." Coach said.

"And you're bringing this up now? Fuck Coach you should have said something before we started looking around!" Nick glared at him.

"Great so how are we going to get the car over there?" Rochelle asked looking at it.

"Simple, Coach and I will push the car and you will push the gas pedal." Nick told her.

"I guess that works." Rochelle replied getting in the drivers seat.

Nick and Coach went behind the car and started pushing.

"Ok baby girl hit it!" Coach told her and then looked at Nick, "You sure about this, Nick? What if the car breaks down while we're on the road? Ellis ain't here to fix it up."

"It's the best plan we got and besides I got a solution for that. We look for another car and fill it up with gas in the next city and we'll keep doing that until we get to Ellis." Nick told him as they started pushing the car and it slowly started to move.

"Nick, Ellis went with them on his own free will. Why are we even doing this when we already know that he doesn't want to be with us?" Coach asked.

"Oh he'll be with us whether he likes it or not because I'm going to force him to come back." Nick replied.

"Nick, we were just with him and you didn't do anything to stop him. You just had that dumb look on your face as he was hugging you." Rochelle said.

Nick blushed slightly.

"What he caught me by surprise alright?"

"Oh he sure did choosing that biker guy over you." Rochelle told him looking at him through the driver's side mirror.

Nick glared at her.

"It's not like that, Rochelle so stop assuming that it is!" Nick said getting annoyed.

"Oh I'm not assuming anything, Nick. I already know." Rochelle giggled as she saw him getting more annoyed.

"Can we drop this subject already? For the last goddamn time I don't like Ellis!" Nick told her.

"So answer me this, Nick why are you trying to get the boy back?" Coach asked, "And don't tell me it's because we need him to keep our asses alive because boy that ain't the truth and we all know it."

Nick opened his mouth and then closed it again blushing from embarrassment. He was silent for a few seconds.

"Just pay attention to where we're going, Coach since you're the one who knows where the gas station is."

"Fine, but if we do get the boy back you might as well drop the act that you're putting on because its obvious we can all see right through it." Coach replied.

"It's too bad Ellis didn't see it that way. He just assumed that you hated him and I don't blame him for thinking that way." Rochelle said looking at the empty seat next to her where she put Ellis's hat on.

"Fine, whatever if it'll get you two to shut up already I will even though I still don't like him." Nick whispered the last part.

Both Rochelle and Coach shook their heads and thought 'he's in denial'. Nick was getting more and more agitated with how slow they were going just to get the car to the gas station. Once they got there and had parked the car, Nick immediately pulled out his wallet, selected the type of gas he wanted and put the money into the machine as soon as he got the nozzle into the car and waited for it to fill the car up. Rochelle got out of the driver's seat and went to sit in the back as Coach got in the front passenger seat and as soon as it was done, Nick removed the nozzle and got into the drivers seat.

"About fucking time!" Nick yelled as he started the car and drove it back in the direction they came from and then followed the direction he saw the others go.

"I can't believe that worked." Coach mumbled.

"Nick, it's only been what an hour and a half? They couldn't have gone too far." Rochelle said noticing how fast Nick was driving.

"Rochelle, in just that amount of time I would be far away from this fucking town so if you're asking me to slow down it isn't going to happen." Nick said speeding even more.

"Well, I would like to still be alive, Nick!" Rochelle yelled quickly putting her seat belt on and gripping tightly to her seat.

Coach laughed.

"Oh come on, Ro. It ain't that bad. I haven't been in a vehicle going this fast in years!" Coach replied grinning, "We'll catch up to them in no time!"

'Yeah we better.' Nick thought gripping tightly to the steering wheel.

"What if we don't know which way they were going?" Rochelle asked.

"It's kinda hard to lose sight of them when the car they took is leaking oil pretty bad." Nick replied keeping his eyes on the road.

"So here's where the zombies were at. They were waiting for us to leave this town in a car!" Coach said yelling happily as Nick ran over a few of the zombies and sped past an oncoming tank.

"Uh no, Coach I think Nick alerted them while he was driving by." Rochelle sighed shaking her head.

"Well, whatever we're out of here!" Nick said driving past the last of the buildings and continued down the road.

Francis and Louis still hadn't said a word to each since they left town and Ellis was starting to wonder if he should start talking about something, but decided not to because he could feel the tension in the air. Zoey occasionally glanced at Louis and slightly turned her head to look at Francis. Louis was concentrating on the road and Francis looked like he was bored out of his mind as he looked out the window.

"Hey, Zoey. You don't mind if I stop driving for a few minutes?" Louis suddenly asked.

Zoey looked at him.

"Are you tired? I can take over if you want." Zoey said.

"I'm good it's just I can't keep driving after so long that I need a bit of a break." Louis told her.

Francis rolled his eyes and mumbled something.

"Well, ok. I do feel like getting out of the car anyway to stretch my legs." Zoey said as Louis stopped the car and parked it on the side of the road.

"I keep forgetting there isn't going to be people driving by us. Oh well out of habit I guess." Louis said and got out.

Ellis looked at all the trees on his side of the car and wondered if it would be ok to get some target practice in.

"Hey, y'all do you reckon there might be some infected out here?" Ellis asked.

"I don't see any. Why?" Zoey asked watching as he also got out of the car.

"I was hopin to get some target practice in. I, uh, shake a lot when I'm tryin to shoot at something and I accidentally shot Nick before while tryin to kill the zombies." Ellis rubbed the back of his head embarrassed.

"Hey, I can help you with that." Francis said getting out of the car and walked around it to stand next to Ellis.

"Really you can?" Ellis asked relieved.

"Hell yeah, man. I just need to see what you can do." Francis told him.

"To be honest, before this here zombie apocalypse I was never taught how to use a gun." Ellis said looking at him.

Francis grinned.

"So, despite the fact that you at least know how to shoot a gun, this will be the first time someone helped you out?" Francis asked.

Ellis nodded blushing.

"Yeah, so is it ok?" Ellis asked again looking at his new teammates.

Louis shrugged and Zoey gave him a small smile.

"Go ahead, Ellis."

"Thanks, y'all." Ellis said.

While Francis was helping Ellis out with his aiming, Zoey got out a water bottle and a bag of grapes to snack on and started eating some as she watched Ellis try shooting at the closest tree. Ellis was shaking again and tried to aim in the middle of the bark of the tree. He pulled the trigger and completely missed shooting the tree. Ellis sighed.

"Man I've got bad aim." Ellis said.

Francis grinned.

"Nah, man it ain't that. Watch I'll show you." Francis said pulling out his pistol and aimed it at the exact same spot on a different tree and was perfectly still.

Ellis watched amazed that Francis hit his mark. Ellis shook his head and looked down sadly.

"I don't know how to be that still." Ellis said.

"Well, here's where I come in. You see I think it's because you've been under a lot of stress and not because of bad aim so if you were to calm down and focus on your target it might help. Here." Francis pocketed his pistol and moved to stand behind Ellis.

Ellis frowned wondering what he was going to do and suddenly Ellis was blushing furiously as he felt his back against Francis's chest and Francis had put both his hands on either side of Ellis's to keep the gun steady.

"Take a deep breath in then let it out slowly. Keep your eyes focused on your target and try hard to not be distracted by anything and then shoot." Francis whispered in his ear.

Ellis did as he was told and this time he managed to at least hit the side of the tree.

"Much better, man. I'll keep helping you to improve your shots alright?" Francis told him and moved away from him.

Ellis nodded still red from how close Francis had been to him.

"Thanks, Francis." Ellis said.

Francis grinned and nodded.

"Ok, everyone back in the car. We all got our much needed fresh air and it's still going to take us some time to get to California." Louis said.

"Yeah, we know." Zoey sighed getting back in.

Once they all were back inside the car, Louis started it up and drove it back on the road. The sun was already starting to go down and they all were wondering if they were going to have to sleep in the car. Ellis was the one who asked the question and Louis sighed.

"That might be the case if we don't find another city or town before nightfall because I seriously don't think that there's going to be a safe house out here." Louis replied.

"He might be right about that." Zoey said disappointed.

"You're always siding with him, Zoey." Francis sighed.

"It's because he's usually right, Francis." Zoey responded.

"Hey, he's been wrong before."

"Francis, please don't start."

Ellis was starting to get tired. He didn't know if he actually was or it was because that he was still in pain that lying against his seat and closing his eyes sounded like a good idea to him. Just as he started to doze off he felt Francis shake him a little.

"Ellis, you doing alright?" Francis asked looking slightly worried.

Ellis nodded and looked at him tiredly.

"Yeah I'm just sleepy is all." Ellis yawned and snuggled against the seat.

Ellis closed his eyes and as he did so he felt himself being pulled towards Francis and knew that he was now leaning against his shoulder. If he hadn't been so tired he would have blushed.

"I didn't think you would be comfortable in that position so….you can use my shoulder as your pillow." Francis whispered

Ellis smiled and wrapped his arms around Francis's arm. Feeling more comfortable he started falling asleep. As soon as he did he started having a nightmare revolving around both his old friends and his new ones. Two tanks had been on Nick, Rochelle, and Coach's asses and had already killed Rochelle and Coach. Ellis screamed in horror as the tanks cornered Nick and he watched and heard Nick's agonizing screams as he tried to get to him and tried to shoot at the tanks, but instead somehow that scene changed to Francis gasping for breath as Ellis had apparently shot him in the back. Louis and Zoey were looking at Ellis completely horrified.

"You killed him!" Zoey screamed.

"I can't believe we let you join our team and Francis trusted you!" Louis yelled at him.

Ellis had turned completely white and tried to say something but his voice wouldn't come out. He finally ended up waking up, sweating and the first thing he noticed was that he had been lying in a bed. Francis stirred and turned to look at him.

"What happened?" Francis whispered tiredly.

"Nuthin. Did, uh, did we find…?" Ellis began to ask.

Francis nodded.

"Yeah, seems that asshole is always right." Francis said quietly and then chuckled, "Man, you sleep like a log. It was only like what seven and now it's what?" Francis turned to look at the clock next to him, "Almost one thirty in the morning." He turned back to face him, "You alright? You look like you're sweating."

"I'm fine, man. Just a bad nightmare is all." Ellis replied sighing and wiping his forehead.

"You sure? Do you want to talk about it?" Francis asked.

Ellis shook his head and Francis shrugged.

"Ok, but if you need to I'm here."

Francis laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. Ellis sat there for a few minutes trying hard not to think about the dream but couldn't help it.

'One nightmare and already I want to see if Nick and them are doin alright. Of course they would have left by now so…' Ellis looked at Francis and then remembered what Nick had said about him getting them all killed 'shit, man. I can't do this. If I'm the reason that someone here dies I'm never gunna forgive myself for it.'

Ellis lied back down and tried to get some sleep, but he already knew that he probably wasn't going to be able to now. All he could do was pray that Nick wasn't dead and that he wasn't going to end up killing Francis. Ellis frowned at the thought.

'Shouldn't I be worried about Zoey and Louis too?' Ellis wondered why he immediately thought of Francis 'It's just a dream…but then why did I dream of myself killing Francis only?'

Ellis's eyes grew wide and he clutched tightly to the blankets.

'Aw hell, I just got mahself involved with another group that's just like my old one except this time they don't treat me like a kid.'

Ellis was now again feeling extremely worried and started to think that it might have been a bad idea to have joined them since he now kept thinking that someone in their group was going to die.

Author's note: Since I have a feeling that this story is going to be long I'll be updating during the weekend at least two chapters maybe three. I also probably won't update until next weekend once I upload the next chapter tomorrow night. I might update during the week but no promises. The reason why I'm doing this is because I kinda do want to finish the story so yeah. A lot of work though, but I think it might be worth it in the end especially since I'm trying to make the chapters longer then the last.


	6. Ellis Is Better Than Louis

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

The next morning Louis again insisted that they needed to look for more gas while they were still in town. It was smaller then the previous one they were in and Louis had seen a lot of gas cans last night as he drove into town and parked the car next to the safe house.

"Don't we have enough gas to last us for awhile?" Ellis asked.

"Ellis, while you slept it took us another three to four hours just to get here and we ended up using a lot of our gas. So we're going to have to refill the car up and we only have two gas cans left. We need more for later." Louis explained.

"It took us that long to get here?" Zoey asked surprised.

Francis laughed.

"You didn't know because you fell asleep also. Louis and I had to carry you and Ellis into the safe house and into the beds."

Zoey blushed.

"Why didn't you guys wake me up?" Zoey asked.

"You were already asleep so we figured to just let you guys keep sleeping." Louis told her, "You looked like you hadn't gotten any rest since…"

Louis paused and Zoey knew exactly what he was going to say and nodded.

"Thanks, I really did need that." Zoey smiled slightly.

Louis smiled at her.

"Well, it'll be easier now to get the gas cans. There were tons of them around when I drove us here last night. Only problem is I thought I heard a witch nearby." Louis said.

"So there's zombies here big deal we can handle that." Francis said.

"Just try not and startle the witch, Francis." Zoey sighed.

"So what's the plan?" Ellis asked.

"You guys will need to cover our backs as Zoey and I get as much gas as we can and bring them safely back to the car." Louis said pointing at him and Francis, "This way Francis won't accidentally shoot a can."

Francis rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms.

"Uh, you sure about that?" Ellis asked nervously.

"Don't worry about it, man. We have total faith in you." Francis said gripping Ellis's shoulder.

"We need to work as a team and have trust in each other otherwise we'll end up getting someone killed here." Louis replied.

"Yeah, alright." Ellis sighed.

"So is everyone good to go?" Louis asked.

"Hell, yeah. With a breakfast like that I'm ready to kick some zombie ass!" Francis grinned.

"It was just eggs and waffles, Francis." Zoey said.

"Zoey, when was the last time we had a meal like that?" Francis asked.

Ellis chuckled.

"Lucky for us there was some in this safe house. Normally it would only be cereal or somethin small." Ellis said looking at him.

"Ok enough with the chit chat. I would like to get this over with as soon as possible so we can get back on the road." Louis said.

"Yeah, let's do it." Zoey said.

Francis grabbed a molotov and Ellis grabbed a pipe bomb before they left the safe house. They all had their guns up ready to shoot anything that came at them. Immediately almost anywhere that they looked they could see a bunch of groups of gas cans.

"See? I told you guys it would be easier." Louis said as he and Zoey went to the closest ones and they each picked up one and got it to the car.

"Keep your eyes out for the infected, Ellis." Francis told him looking from the top of buildings to dark corners anywhere where a zombie could get them by surprise.

Ellis couldn't help it. He was shaking again and he couldn't keep the gun in his hands still as he looked in all directions for the infected and that's when they all heard the cry of a witch.

"That's not good. I don't see her!" Francis yelled.

Louis opened the trunk and Zoey and him both placed the gas cans inside it. He quickly turned around just as a horde of zombies was alerted to their presence.

"Shit! Guys keep them off our asses!" Louis yelled.

Zoey and Louis rushed to get the next cans and Francis and Ellis started blasting away at what they could get. Francis aimed his sights at the zombies pounding on Zoey and Louis's backs and shot them making it easier for them to get the cans and run back to the car.

"Y'all look out for that spitter!" Ellis yelled as he saw it near them and tried to aim at it to kill it, but then realized that it was just too close to Zoey that he might accidentally shoot her instead.

The spitter spit right where Louis and Zoey were standing as they put the gas in the trunk.

"What the hell?" Louis yelled quickly backing away from it.

"I hate these new infected!" Zoey said having seen them before when Bill was killed and also moved away.

Francis took aim and killed it.

"Well, what do you know? It drops more of that stuff when you kill it." Francis said amused.

"Francis, just shut up and get these zombies out of our way!" Louis told him as he pushed his way to get to more of the gas cans.

Ellis took out the pipe bomb and tossed it. The zombies diverted their attention to the weird noise and went chasing after it.

"Man they're stupid." Francis laughed shaking his head.

"Help!" Zoey cried.

Both Francis and Ellis turned to see that a smoker had a hold of Zoey and without thinking, Ellis aimed and shot at it. They watched as it died in a puff of smoke.

"Thanks." Zoey coughed and went for the gas can she had dropped.

Ellis sighed with relief.

"Nice one, man." Francis said grinning at Ellis.

Just as the pipe bomb exploded the witch was startled and started running towards Ellis.

"Shit, I didn't know she was there!" Ellis said and started running the other way.

Francis pulled out the molotov and tossed it at the witch before she passed him and was immediately lit on fire. He immediately then started shooting the witch. Louis and Zoey watched as Ellis ran by them and then turned to see that the witch was chasing him.

"How on earth did he startle the witch?" Louis asked as he and Zoey also shot at her.

Unfortunately as soon as the witch died, Ellis alerted a tank and ran back the way he came from. Francis, Zoey, and Louis looked on in horror as they now started shooting the tank. Once Ellis was back with them he turned and also started shooting at it. Just as it reached them it toppled over and died. They heard more noise as they saw more zombies start running at them.

"Shit, man! Ok, all of us grab one last gas can, throw it in the trunk, and get your ass in the car!" Louis yelled.

They all made their way to another group of gas cans and they each picked up one and ran back towards the car, but not before a jockey jumped on top of Francis and started steering him away.

"Francis!" Ellis yelled and ran back towards him and aimed at the jockey.

"Get this fucking ass thing off of me!" Francis yelled out.

Ellis took a deep breath in then let it out as he concentrated on shooting the back of the jockey's head. He pulled the trigger and it fell to the ground dead.

"Nice shot!" Zoey said.

"You alright?" Ellis asked looking at Francis as he picked up the gas can he had to drop to help him.

"Yeah, thanks. I told you that you could do it." Francis smiled at him and went to get the gas can and they both ran towards the car, threw them in the trunk, closed it, and all four hurried to get inside the car.

"Buckle up, everyone. This is going to be one hell of a drive!" Louis told them quickly backing up the car and then put it in drive as he made turn back on to the road.

Zombies were already up against the car trying to either push the car over or to break the windows, but once Louis hit the gas pedal bodies were sent flying and some of them were crushed underneath the tires. Ellis yelled out in excitement as they went over a speed bump and sped past any other oncoming zombie.

"That was awesome, man!" Ellis grinned.

Francis chuckled.

"I totally agree with you there." Francis replied.

Zoey started to laugh, but Louis just looked pissed.

"Ellis, how on earth did you manage to get yourself in that kind of trouble?" Louis asked angrily.

Ellis's excitement immediately died down knowing exactly why Louis was pissed. He looked down and started feeling again like he messed up. Zoey looked at Louis in shock.

"Louis, don't be mad at Ellis!" Zoey told him starting to feel slightly angry herself.

"It was an accident. I swear I didn't mean to…" Ellis whispered.

"We could have had more time to get more gas cans!" Louis started to yell.

"Louis, eight cans is plenty enough!" Zoey said glaring at him.

"That's not the point! I know that that's enough! What I'm angry about is that he could have gotten all of us killed!" Louis replied.

Ellis winced and immediately could hear Nick's voice in his head.

"Shut the fuck up, Louis! You have no right! None to say that to him!" Francis growled, "If anyone could've gotten us all killed it would have been you, Louis! You would have just left us there to die!"

"Are you seriously going to start that shit up again, Francis?" Louis asked angrily.

"You're making me to! Ellis saved me from that jockey AND he saved Zoey from the smoker. What did you do, Louis? Nothing. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! All you did was pick up gas cans!" Francis roared with anger.

Louis pushed down hard on the brakes that if Zoey hadn't been wearing her seatbelt she would have gone flying through the window. Louis turned to glare at Francis.

"As soon as we get out of here I'm going to kick your fucking ass!" Louis yelled.

Francis smirked.

"Really? You're going to kick my ass? For a wimpy looking guy you sure got guts."

"Fuck you, Francis! I wish to god that it had been you who died instead of Bill!" Louis said.

Ellis looked up in horror. Even Francis and Zoey were shocked at what Louis had said.

"Louis, get the fuck out of the car now!" Zoey yelled at him.

Louis looked from one to the other and shrugged.

"Whatever, man. It's cool. I'd rather not die with a bunch of fucking losers anyway." Louis said parking the car and then got out and started walking on foot.

Francis got out of the car and went to the driver's seat. Before he put it in drive he looked back at Ellis who looked like he was about to cry.

"Ellis, if it wasn't for you Zoey and I would have been in a lot of trouble. I just wanted to say that I'm glad we have you on our team. Zoey and I need you." Francis told him smiling.

Ellis blushed. Zoey looked back at him and also smiled; her eyes already turning red from the tears that were starting to form in her eyes.

"Thanks, Ellis for saving us back there." Zoey said.

"T-Thanks y'all that really means a lot and thanks for not also thinking that I'm a burden." Ellis replied smiling slightly.

"You never will be, Ellis. Not to us." Zoey told him.

Francis grinned and then sighed as he put the car into drive and started driving.

"Well, this sucks. It's only three of us now." Francis said.

Ellis thought of something as he looked outside the front window.

"I might have an idea. How about we go look for my buddy, Keith?" Ellis asked.

"You've got a friend out there, Ellis?" Zoey asked.

"Yeah. I just remembered that right when the zombie apocalypse hit he said somethin about heading towards Arizona. Somethin about wanting to meet up with his girlfriend since she was out of town and visiting her folks. I can't believe I forgot until now." Ellis replied.

"Well, it is on our way to California so it wouldn't hurt to drop by. Do you know where she lives?" Francis asked.

"Somewhere in Phoenix. Other then that I have no idea." Ellis said.

"Well, it's a start, but what makes you think he might still be there?" Francis asked.

"We're best friends so he knows that I'll be looking for him. He's probably still there waitin for me." Ellis responded.

"It's worth a shot." Zoey said.

"Ok, Phoenix Arizona here we come." Francis said.

Nick, Rochelle, and Coach had ended up sleeping in their car. Nick at first refused to stop driving, but after finally convincing him, being tired himself was a major factor, he parked the car on the side of the road and fell asleep. As soon as Nick woke up in the morning he immediately went back to driving which woke up the other two. After an hour had passed they finally reached the town that Ellis had already been at and left. Nick followed the oil from the other survivors' car all the way to the safe house.

"Son of a bitch. They fucking left already." Nick sighed as soon as he saw the oil leading from the safe house back to the road.

"Of course they would have left, Nick. They wouldn't have stayed here for very long." Rochelle yawned and rubbed her eyes.

"Hold on. Don't leave yet, Nick. We really should stock up on some supplies." Coach said getting out of the car and went inside the safe house.

Rochelle frowned looking out the window.

"Is that a tank and a witch? She looks like she got burned pretty bad." Rochelle said.

"Must have been Ellis again. He's always doing shit like this." Nick sighed, "He's going to get himself killed."

Rochelle noticed right away that there wasn't any anger in Nick's voice when he said that. She knew better then to ask since all Nick would do is deny it, but it almost sounded as if Nick missed looking after him. He never did heal Ellis, but Rochelle knew that it was because that he couldn't bring himself to touch him or rather he didn't want to because Nick wouldn't stop wanting to touch him if he did. After a few minutes Coach finally came back with a few things in a bag.

"You wont believe what they had in there. Waffles and eggs, but I figured to just take the waffles since the eggs would be very easily broken and I found some drinks as well. There's plenty of water bottles to go around and since we're gunna save the waffles for later I found something for us to snack on; twinkies!" Coach grinned holding up a box full of them.

Nick snorted shaking his head.

"Sounds like something Ellis would like." Nick said.

'Again he's talking about Ellis. Sheesh he's got a one track mind.' Rochelle thought to herself.

Coach got back in the car and Nick started backing the car up and drove back on the road.

"Looks like they ran over all these zombies to get away. Were they attacked?" Coach asked as he saw body parts and insides scattered all over the road.

"Looks like it." Rochelle replied.

They hadn't gotten far before Rochelle yelled making Nick put on the brakes and turn to look at her annoyed.

"What the hell, Rochelle?" Nick asked.

"Isn't that one of the guys who was with Ellis?" Rochelle asked pointing at the guy.

Nick and Coach watched and immediately knew that Rochelle was right. He had been the one driving the car so what was he doing out here by himself? He looked up when he heard the sound of screeching tires and immediately recognized the people in the car. Nick drove closer to him so they could talk.

"Hey, you're the one from before who was with our friend, Ellis. What are you doing out here by yourself and where are the others?" Rochelle asked once she opened her window.

Louis looked at them with a guilty look on his face. Nick immediately felt that something wasn't right and started to think that something happened that either separated him from the others or they were all killed except him. Nick felt his heart start to pound hard in his chest part of him not wanting to know the answer, but knew that he had to know.

"She asked you a fucking question, asshole! Where is Ellis and the rest of your teammates?" Nick asked.

Author's note: Last update until next weekend. I'm starting to like where I'm taking this story. Sorry there isn't a lot of zombies scenes or NickxEllis, but I promise once Nick catches up with him he will definitely be staying close by him and when I mean close I mean close like not letting him out of his sight. You'll understand later why besides the fact that he missed him ^_^. Also if you count Keith as an actual character then technically its two people who die instead of one like I said before, but hey I don't really count him since he isn't actually in the story. Also just so you guys know I have never used a gun in my life so I have no clue if Francis is helping Ellis the right way or not. I'm just using my imagination. Last thing I'm sorry I'm making Louis act like a total jackass. Since Bill's death I'm thinking everything's falling apart in their group and Louis can't seem to handle it. I like Louis I honestly do, but hey everyone's gotta deal with someone else's death in their own way.


	7. Keith

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

As soon as Louis finished filling them in on what had happened between him and the others Nick, Rochelle, and Coach decided to bring him along with them hoping that he could tell them which way to go in case Ellis and them figured out that their car was leaking gas and Ellis ended up fixing it. Louis got in the backseat next to Rochelle and Nick started driving again.

Louis sighed.

"I still can't believe I said that to them and then left. They have no reason to forgive me and they were right. I shouldn't have yelled at Ellis like that since he was only trying to help us out." Louis said.

"They'll forgive you, Louis. I know they will. It must be hard having to deal with the death of a teammate." Rochelle said looking at him sadly.

Louis swallowed and nodded.

"I-I've been trying to keep it together, but I just can't anymore. I kept telling myself to be strong for Francis and Zoey and falling apart in front of them will only make them worry about how I'm feeling then what they should be worrying about getting to safety." Louis replied, "Francis keeps saying that I left Bill to die, but the truth is I wanted to go back and help him, but one look from Bill and I knew what I had to do instead. They have no idea how much Bill's death has been haunting me."

Rochelle leaned towards him and hugged him.

"Hey, I need to know one thing. Did you guys by chance happen to notice that your car was leaking oil?" Nick asked.

Louis frowned as he pushed himself up to take a look out the windshield.

"It is? We never noticed so no they don't know about it." Louis said.

"Still, I wouldn't put it past Ellis to figure it out sooner rather then later. He is a mechanic." Coach said.

Louis looked surprised.

"Really? So…I know it isn't any of my business, but why would you guys treat him poorly when he's obviously good at fixing cars and was helping you guys fight off the infected?" Louis asked.

Nick frowned still keeping his eyes on the road.

"Did Ellis tell you that?" Nick asked.

"Well, I reworded it. He said that you guys were treating him like a burden and that he was going to get you killed." Louis said.

Nick winced.

"You see, Nick. Ellis took what you said to heart!" Coach told him.

"He always does. Ellis practically looks up to Nick. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Ellis liked Nick." Rochelle said looking up at Louis who looked at her in surprise, but then chuckled.

"Well, if that's the case Francis has some competition." Louis said.

"What does that mean?" Nick asked.

Louis snorted.

"You should have seen how Francis first reacted when we found Ellis unconscious inside the building with all those motorcycles outside it. He really, really wanted to get him somewhere safe so we could heal him. Francis was also the one who carefully removed the glass pieces that were in his back before Zoey stitched him back up." Louis told him, "Also the way he was so eager to ask Ellis if he wanted to join up with us I swear if I didn't know better I thought…"

"You thought what?" Nick said through gritted teeth.

Louis blinked staring at him.

"I thought Francis liked Ellis especially when he stared at him when Ellis lifted his shirt so he could see his back in the bathroom mirror." Louis replied.

Nick started to turn red with anger. Coach and Rochelle laughed.

Louis thought for a few seconds.

"Actually as I recall Zoey was blushing when she saw Ellis's bare chest." Louis said.

"Shut the fuck up already!" Nick growled.

"Aw ain't that cute!" Coach grinned.

"Ellis sure is loved by your group." Rochelle said.

"He isn't going to be with them long enough to even have a relationship with either one of them!" Nick told them.

"You're kinda late for that, man. Francis has been trying to develop a relationship with the kid and right now he's helping him to learn how to aim and get the target without shaking." Louis said.

"You know you're right. I never noticed until now when you said it." Rochelle said thinking back the last few times that they had come across the infected.

Coach nodded.

"The boy had been shaking a lot while he was tryin to kill the zombies." Coach replied.

"In fact I'm starting to think that Ellis likes Francis. Since he was all hot and bothered when Francis pulled away from him."

"WHAT THE FUCK? Are you seriously trying to piss me off?" Nick yelled stopping the car and turned to glare at Louis.

Louis laughed finding it very amusing to watch Nick get angry.

"Well, they were sleeping in the same bed."

Nick was speechless and his whole face was red from anger.

"Dude, I was just joking. They were sleeping in the same bed but nothing happened. What I meant by what I just said is Francis went behind Ellis to help keep the gun in his hand steady as Ellis practiced shooting at a tree and yeah Ellis was starting to turn red." Louis snorted shaking his head.

Nick mumbled something as he turned to face the front again and started driving again. Coach frowned and looked at him.

"Nick it really isn't any of your business if Ellis wants to be in a relationship with someone else. I mean you can't blame him can you? All you've ever done is make him feel bad and let's face it. This Francis guy must really care about for him to be acting the way we've heard he's been acting around the boy." Coach told him.

"He's got no right, Coach. None. He doesn't even know Ellis!" Nick responded angrily.

"And you do, Nick?" Coach asked.

Nick went quiet.

"Listen. I think all of us might have been a little too hard on him. We keep treating him like he can't take care of himself and we keep telling him to stop with the Keith stories. It's not only once we've told him that, but every single time he tries to tell us one and I think he might resent us a little for that." Coach said.

"He just wanted to be with people who would listen to him and treat him more like an adult." Rochelle whispered.

"We should have seen this coming, Nick. I mean think about it. What would you do if it was you in his position?" Coach asked.

Nick didn't respond.

"We have to give him his space and let him make his own decisions. Nick, you have to let him go." Coach told him.

Nick brought the car to a sudden stop and turned to glare at Coach. Rochelle winced at the look he was giving Coach and clung to Louis.

"I'm not just going to 'let him go' Coach. You want to know what I think that means? It means you're abandoning him." Nick told him coldly.

Coach growled.

"I'm not abandoning him. Weren't you listening at all to what I was saying?" Coach asked.

"I was and as far as I can tell you don't want anything to do with him. If you don't want to help me look for him then you can get out of the car right now because I'm not just going to leave Ellis to fend for himself with them." Nick told him.

It got really awkward between the two of them and Louis leaned closer to Rochelle so only she could hear him.

"It's amazing how much both of our groups have in common." Louis told her.

Rochelle nodded.

"Yeah, I guess so."

It took a good couple of days before Ellis, Francis and Zoey made their way to Phoenix, Arizona. They had made quite a few trips at different safe houses to not only get some sleep, but to stack up on whatever supplies that they needed like food, drinks, pain pills, etc. As soon as they arrived in the city, however, they were all shocked at what they found. Buildings had been lit on fire and there were tons of bodies everywhere; zombies and humans that weren't infected. Francis drove slowly so as to not alert any zombies that were probably still in the area.

"This place was hit by the infection pretty bad." Zoey whispered swallowing as she saw a dead child on the side of the road, "Oh god."

"What the hell? Was this recent? It doesn't look like this happened awhile ago." Ellis said wide eyed as he searched frantically for Keith.

Francis bit his lip as he looked around for any sign of survivors.

"It looks like the city's been wiped out. I don't even see or hear any of the infected." Francis said.

"You think maybe they moved to another city?" Zoey asked.

"Zoey, I'm pretty sure they're all over the place right about now it's just…I guess it looks like…they might have already killed everyone here." Francis said turning his head to look at Ellis worriedly.

Ellis was in denial. He couldn't believe that Keith was more then likely already dead as he kept on looking.

"Do you think that it might be safe to just get out of the car and look around?" Zoey asked.

"We have to find that Keith guy so it looks like we don't have a choice. There isn't going to be any safe houses here obviously because all the buildings are burning to the ground so just keep an eye out for the infected you know just in case." Francis said as he parked the car and all three got out.

They had their guns out ready to kill anything that surprised them as they slowly started moving past the buildings and looked down at all the bodies wondering if Keith was there somewhere. None of them could believe just how many bodies they were seeing.

"Are they mostly infected or human?" Zoey asked almost about ready to cry since it didn't really matter because technically they all were human or used to be anyway.

"I don't know. There's just way too many bodies!" Francis exclaimed.

"Y'all over here!" Ellis cried out.

Francis and Zoey ran over to where Ellis was at and his whole face was white as he looked down at the dead body.

"It's Keith's girlfriend. He introduced me to her before she came down here to see her folks." Ellis told them.

Blood and people's insides were all over the place and they couldn't tell if it was coming from her or the others surrounding her. She looked like she had been smashed as they could see her ribs starting to show from the sides of her body. Zoey shivered.

"The only thing that can do that is a tank. It must have pounded her and all these poor bastards here until they looked like this." Francis said.

Ellis ran a hand through his hair.

"Shit. Shit, man." Ellis said.

Zoey tapped on Francis's shoulder making him turn around and saw that people had also been hanged by a smoker's tongue.

"They were brutal here. Makes me wonder if all of the people that lived here were all of them immune?" Francis asked.

"Must have been because I know I've never seen anything like this before." Zoey said.

"Keith!" Ellis yelled out cupping his hands around his mouth so his voice could be carried.

"You don't think that maybe…" Zoey whispered to Francis.

Francis closed his eyes and nodded.

"I'm afraid so." Francis told her.

Ellis continued to call out for his friend for several minutes. Francis walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder gripping it tightly.

"Ellis, man. I don't think he's coming." Francis said.

Ellis shook his head.

"Nah, you'll see he'll show up. This one time my buddy Keith promised me that he would make it to my graduation party, but as it turned out he also ended up having to go to another friend's party so before he could miss mine he drove so fast he got himself into a car accident and as the ambulance showed up he refused to go with them and insisted that he was to be taken to mah house. So back at mah place we weren't really doing a lot just sittin back and watchin some T.V. when all of a sudden he shows up with a broken leg and he smiles and says 'told ya I would be here'" Ellis smiled, "Yeah it figures that he'd worry more about someone else then he would about himself."

"Wait, so you didn't have cake or anything to celebrate that occasion?" Francis asked.

"We did, but it was small since it was only my mom, Dave, Keith, and I and we had waited for Keith to show up before we had any." Ellis's eyes went wide as he looked at Francis and Zoey.

"What is it, Ellis?" Zoey asked.

"I finished one of mah stories and you guys didn't stop me!" Ellis said happily.

"Why would we stop you? It sounded like you wanted us to hear it plus I liked it." Francis said, "That Keith is one hell of a guy I gotta give him credit for that. Not many people would do that."

Zoey smiled at him, but then looked down at the ground sadly.

"That's why I know he's bound to be around here somewhere. He's just got to be." Ellis said looking around.

They continued calling out Keith's name for another fifteen minutes as they went further and further into the city.

"Man this sucks. I wish we knew what he looks like." Francis sighed.

"Ellis, do you have a picture of him on you right now?" Zoey asked.

Ellis shook his head.

"Sorry. All the pictures I've got of him are back home." Ellis replied.

"Well then, Ellis you're the only one who knows what he looks like so we'll follow you." Zoey told him.

Ellis kept looking around for him, but there was no sign of him anywhere. Ellis sighed and shook his head.

"Maybe he left already." Ellis whispered.

"Ellis, man I think you might want to take a look at this." Francis said looking at what used to be a Wal-Mart.

Ellis turned and saw that in front of the store there was a few bodies that apparently were further away from where everyone else had been. Ellis swallowed as he walked up to them and examined them. It wasn't until he got to the last one that he immediately felt like he was going to be sick.

"Keith."

Author's note: Miss me anyone? Lol joking. Sorry I made you guys wait almost a week, but hey for this weekend including this chapter three will be coming out so tomorrow night expect another chapter and Saturday night the last one for this weekend. Also to the person who keeps reviewing me I love you so much you always make my day as I'm always checking to see if I have new reviews! I'm glad to know what you think about my story. It always gets me to write another chapter as soon as I can. Technically my chapters will be up on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so letting you guys know. Also the story might not be as long as I thought it was going to be. It'll probably be longer then any of my other stories, but not by a big difference and here I thought it was going to be twenty chapters. Oh well never mind lol this is what happens when I make promises I can't keep. I have no idea now exactly how long this will be so be patient with me here alright? Also I noticed some of you favorite my other NickxEllis story. Are you guys thinking of voting on your favorite story of mine so far? Great! I can't wait to see which one wins. I'm betting it's between this one and my first l4d story. We'll just have to wait and see once I finish. ^_^


	8. Out Of Options

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

Keith's chest had been torn wide open and all of his insides were showing some of them even on the ground. His eyes were still open and he was bleeding not only from his head, but out of his nose, eyes, and ears. Ellis freaked out as he started to shake and tears immediately fell down his face.

Francis and Zoey had heard him say Keith's name and were both looking at him sadly.

"Ellis, I'm so sorry." Zoey said as she kneeled down next to him and hugged him.

Ellis started sobbing as he clung to her and had his eyes shut tight.

"H-He was the l-last person that I t-thought I still had in mah l-life who cared about me. I already l-lost my m-mom and my other f-friend Dave and n-now I have no one to r-return to." Ellis cried.

Francis kneeled down next to them and put a hand on Ellis's shoulder.

"Ellis, you've got us right, Zoey?" Francis told him as he looked at him.

"Yeah we're not going anywhere, Ellis. Once we get out of here we can all be one happy family." Zoey whispered to him trying to comfort him.

Ellis nodded and continued crying as Francis and Zoey helped him to his feet.

'Looks like I've got some hunters to fucking kill.' Francis thought angrily.

"Should we get out of here now, Francis?" Zoey asked looking at him as she still had a hold on Ellis.

Francis nodded.

"Yeah there's no use staying here any longer. It's obvious that there isn't any survivors here so we should start making our way to California." Francis replied.

As they started making their way back to the car they kept hearing sounds coming from different directions. Zoey let go of Ellis so she could be ready to kill anything that showed up.

"Do y'all reckon that the infected might still be here?" Ellis asked wiping away his tears and held his gun at the ready still shaking.

"It's the only thing that explains the sudden sounds." Francis said growling slightly, "How much do you want to bet that this is probably a trap?"

"You mean earlier they had seen us and kept quiet long enough for us to be a good distance away from the car?" Zoey asked horrified.

"Son of a bitch I should have known that they were still here just waiting for more people to show up." Francis said looking around.

Ellis knew he couldn't let Keith's death overwhelm him or he would end up getting one if not both of his teammates killed. He swallowed and tried to calm himself down remembering how the last couple of days Francis had been helping him hit his target on random objects inside buildings and how he kept saying how it was important to keep calm at all times. Zoey looked at Francis not surprised at how much Francis was trying to take charge of the group and actually start thinking about what could possibly happen. If Bill and Louis were still around he would have still been the usual cocky guy that she knew when they first met.

"I think it might just be the special infected cause all the 'normal' zombies are nowhere to be seen except the ones that are spread out all over the road." Ellis said.

"Still they are called the undead for a reason." Francis sighed hoping that none of them got back up and suddenly attack them.

"Guys, I think we should get back to the car now." Zoey said urgently as she heard the sounds get closer to them.

That's when they saw the 'normal' infected run at them.

"Holy shit, run!" Ellis yelled running and shooting at the same time.

"Damn, how many people lived in this city?" Francis asked tossing out a pipe bomb and then he and Zoey ran after Ellis.

When they weren't looking a hunter pounced Zoey who had been behind Francis and started screaming.

"ZOEY!" Both Francis and Ellis yelled and went back to get her.

Francis shot the hunter in the head quickly killing it and glared angrily at its dead body.

"You alright there, Zoey?" Ellis asked helping her to her feet.

"Yeah don't worry about me just go!" Zoey replied quickly killing a smoker she saw nearby as soon as she got up.

Francis looked behind them in horror as another large group of zombies went running after them.

"Keep running!" Francis told them and they all ran as fast as they could while shooting at the zombies that were coming at them from the sides.

Having not seen it, they accidentally shot at a tank and it roared angrily as it ran towards them.

"Fuck!" Francis cursed.

Zoey quickly pulled out a molotov and tossed it at the tank at the same time as Ellis threw a bile jar at the tank making the zombies divert their attention to the tank.

"Nice one, Ellis! That takes care of them for now." Zoey watched as the zombies were lit on fire the moment they touched the tank.

In just a few minutes they finally managed to out run the tank and they turned and saw that it died.

"Y'all I see the car!" Ellis said relief flooding through him as they ran towards it. As they approached it however, he looked at it completely horrified as he saw that the tires had been slashed, "Uh, we got a problem."

"What is…shit." Francis said also right away noticing the tires, "So much for getting out of here."

"Guys I think I see a safe house!" Zoey cried out as she pointed at a house that looked like it hadn't been touched and saw that it had its usual red door.

"We don't have much of a choice now do we? Move it!" Francis told them.

They managed to make it inside and close the door just as a jockey was about to jump on one of them. They barred the door and then Francis shot through the door and killed the jockey. They all sighed with relief as they fell to the floor breathing hard.

"That was way too close, man." Ellis said, "I'm sorry you guys. I should have known that Keith was…" he swallowed and looked down.

"Don't apologize, Ellis. You wanted to find your friend and none of us could have seen this coming." Francis told him.

"Still…I shouldn't have even asked if we could look for him. It just ended up puttin you guys into more trouble then what it was worth. To be honest I just wanted to be with someone who actually knew me." Ellis said sadly.

"Ellis, we're a team and that means if one of us wants to go looking for someone the rest of the team will follow them. We need to stick together if we want to have any chance of surviving this, but hey like I said before I doubt anyone's going to help us out so if things get bad I'd rather go out fighting then stay here and wait till I die of old age." Francis grinned.

Zoey nodded.

"Besides, Ellis you're a part of this team too so stop thinking that you're not. I know it's been a little awkward because of you being with us instead of Bill, but neither one of us regrets having you on our team please know that." Zoey said.

Ellis smiled and nodded.

"Well, kids it looks like we're not going anywhere until we can come up with another plan." Francis said.

"Without a car how are we supposed to get by?" Ellis asked.

"I don't know." Francis replied.

Zoey bit her lip already thinking that they probably weren't going to be able to get away this time.

"We can't go looking for another car since the zombies probably did the same thing to all of them already and guaranteed there's no evac station here…so what option does that leave us with?" Zoey asked.

Everyone was silent for a few minutes.

"You don't suppose someone will find us here do you?" Ellis asked.

"I don't think so, man. Unless your old team has been following us I'm thinking we're going to die out here because there's no way we can get out of here on foot before a tank or something gets all three of us." Francis replied.

Ellis nodded already knowing that there was no way Nick and them were going to still be out there and even if they were how were they going to be able to get them out without something bad happening?

'They probably got taken to a safe area so long as the pilot wasn't a zombie again.' Ellis frowned feeling himself start to get curious again wondering if they really were alright.

"So you're saying that there's nothing we can do?" Zoey asked.

"If there is I have no idea how we can get out of here." Francis sighed.

Ellis looked at the floor as he started coming to terms with the inevitable.

"Well, I may not have known you guys for very long, but shit this was the best team that I have ever had the pleasure in helping. If it wasn't for the fact that y'all saved me I know I'd probably be dead before now so it's an honor to go out fighting with the both of you." Ellis said looking from Francis to Zoey.

Zoey slowly nodded and looked at him sadly. Francis couldn't believe what he was hearing. He knew that he was the one who said that they were most likely going to die there, but he didn't say that he wasn't going to do anything to get them out of there safely.

'I don't give a fuck what it takes. I'm getting them both out of here.' Francis thought to himself.

By the time it got dark, Nick and the others finally made it to Arizona.

"Man I hope we catch up with them soon because I can't stand being in a car for this long." Coach sighed as he turned to look in the backseat and saw that both Louis and Rochelle had fallen asleep.

Nick didn't answer as he was too busy driving and noticing how red the sky still looked. He frowned wondering what that was all about.

'Something's not right. I have a bad feeling about this.' Nick thought.

"Hey, Coach. Is it just me or do you have a bad feeling about where we're going?" Nick asked.

Coach frowned as he turned to face the front. He thought about it for a minute as he looked up at the sky.

"Actually, Nick yeah I kinda do. That color of the sky isn't an ordinary red. I've never seen anything this red in a long time. It almost looks blood red." Coach responded.

Nick gritted his teeth.

"That's never a good sign. What city is it that we're going to be coming up on?" Nick asked.

"Uh, I think Phoenix. Hell I've never been in these parts, but I've seen it on a map to know that, that's where I think we're headed, but I could be wrong." Coach told him.

For once Nick was getting the sinking feeling that Ellis was in trouble. His grip on the steering wheel tightened as he drove faster waking Louis and Rochelle.

"Hmm? What's going on?" Rochelle yawned.

Louis rubbed his eyes and the moment he saw the color of the sky his eyes grew wide.

"Aw, shit that ain't good man!" Louis said.

"What is it?" Rochelle asked looking out the window.

"The color of the sky! It was that exact same color the day Bill was killed!" Louis said panic in his voice.

"Maybe it's just a coincidence." Rochelle said

"I don't think so baby girl. Both Nick and I have a bad feeling about this as well." Coach told her.

'Whatever happens just hold on, Ellis. Don't do anything stupid before I can get there.' Nick thought desperately to himself.

Louis started to panic.

"Someone's going to die!"

"Not on my fucking watch!" Nick yelled and pressed down hard on the gas.

"Hey, is that smoke?" Rochelle asked looking out the windshield once again gripping tightly to her seat.

"Hurry it up, man!" Louis told Nick.

"I'm going as fucking fast as I can!" Nick yelled back.

"Boy, you are crazy!" Coach said having never gone this fast before.

Ellis, Francis, and Zoey decided to get some rest before deciding on what they were probably going to do. Ellis and Francis again slept in the same bed and Ellis kept fidgeting with the blankets. Francis looked at him and sighed.

"Ellis, we're not going to die out there alright?" Francis told him.

"B-But there's no rescue vehicle this time and you said that we will most likely die out there." Ellis said nervously.

"I did say that, but I never said anything about not trying to get us out of here. Look I know it's a long shot, but we got a couple of pipe bombs and molotovs that we can use. I also know that it's not going to hold off the infected for long, but it will give us a little bit of time to try and get away. It's not much of a plan, but it's the only thing we got. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life stuck here?" Francis asked.

Ellis shook his head and sighed.

"Like you said I'd rather go down fighting then trying to hide it out. At least if I go down I'll be able to see mah mom, Dave, and Keith again." Ellis said.

"Ellis," Francis said grabbing his arm, "you won't have to for a very long time."

Ellis blushed as Francis leaned closer to him and kissed him on the forehead and then looked at him with a serious look on his face.

"Ellis, you have to promise me something."

"W-What is it?" Ellis asked his heart pounding in his chest.

"If something goes wrong I want you to get the hell out of there as fast as you can." Francis told him.

"Are you asking me to just leave you and Zoey to deal with the zombies all by yourselves?" Ellis asked horrified.

"Trust me I'm going to make sure Zoey gets out as well." Francis said.

"I can't just leave you there, Francis! You'll be killed!" Ellis said frightened as he wrapped his arms around Francis's left arm.

"Ellis, you have to understand that if both you and Zoey stayed with me none of us would survive. At least this way you and Zoey will make it out alive."

"But, Francis that's what I'm worried about! I don't care if I die it's you and Zoey that I'm more concerned about!" Ellis told him.

"Don't say that, Ellis. I don't want you to even think that way about yourself." Francis said, "You know this is how it has to be, man. There's nothing else we can do." Francis swallowed finally realizing why Bill didn't want to be saved.

"There just has to be another way, man." Ellis started to panic and he couldn't stop himself from crying right there, "I j-just lost Keith, Francis. I don't want to hafta see y-you get killed."

"Trust me I wish there was another way too. Ellis, please I'm begging you here don't do something stupid if I do end up getting killed." Francis felt himself start to get emotional, but held it in as Ellis pounded on his chest with his fists.

"Y-You were the one who helped me with my aiming, defended me when Louis was putting me down, got me to a safer location when I had glass in my back, and comforted me when I saw Keith's dead body. F-Francis P-Please you c-can't…" Ellis sobbed as he slowly stopped hitting Francis and ended up just lying there crying his eyes out as he clung on to him as if he would disappear if Ellis let him go.

Francis held him tightly in his arms as he looked at him worriedly.

'Hopefully it won't go as bad as I'm thinking it's going to go.' Francis thought not even believing what he just thought.

Author's note: Sweet more reviewers thank you so much by the way I absolutely love it when my story gets commented on. Yeah it's not hard to guess what's going to happen in tomorrow nights chapter. After the next chapter it will finally be NXE since Nick will be looking after poor Ellis. Unfortunately that more then likely means it won't be up until next weekend. Every time I update my story I have a feeling that once I end a chapter you guys end up really wanting to know what happens next and can't wait for the next one especially when the next update doesn't come until the following weekend. I also have a feeling you guys are going to probably want me to update sooner after the next chapter, but hey I do need a break sometimes so yeah sorry that's why I wait so long after I write three chapters for the weekend. It is a lot of work, but I'm happy to do it. I'm glad my story is getting a lot of attention which now I can say this story will totally not be discontinued I will continue to the end thanks to all the people who favorited, reviewed, and story alerted my story thank you! ^^


	9. Leave Out All The Rest

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

As soon as they all thought they were ready to head out Francis, Zoey, and Ellis grabbed a pipe bomb and a molotov and made their way back towards the safe room door. Ellis was wide eyed and was clutching tightly to his gun as soon as he saw how many 'normal' infected were outside.

"Shit, it looks like the rest of the city decided to show up." Francis sighed as he slowly unbarred the door and looked back at Zoey and Ellis.

Both of them were really nervous as they started to think that they weren't going to last a minute out there. Zoey swallowed as she heard a few sounds coming from a smoker, spitter, and a boomer.

"This is worse then the last time…Francis?" Zoey asked as she started to have a panic attack.

"Calm down, Zoey. Freaking out is only going to get you killed." Francis told her turning back to look outside, "The moment we get outside I'll toss the first pipe bomb and while they're all distracted we run as fast as we can and hopefully get as far away as possible from here before they start chasing us again."

"I'm sorry it's just we drove quite a ways inside the city and I'm just not so sure we'll make it out of here before we get attacked." Zoey replied.

"Seriously, why bother runnin if there isn't gunna be a rescue vehicle anyway?" Ellis asked looking at Francis.

Francis turned to face him and tried to convince him that there will be one.

"There's always a rescue vehicle, Ellis. It just sucks that it always arrives at the very fucking last minute." Francis replied.

"I guess." Ellis responded not so much caring about getting rescued as he was about not leaving the other two especially Francis behind.

"Well are we all ready for this?" Francis asked as he turned back to face the door.

Zoey nodded and held her gun at the ready.

"Ready as I'll ever be." Zoey responded.

Ellis very reluctantly also nodded his head as he swallowed and got ready to start killing the zombies. Francis was about to open the door, but then hesitated and then turned around and went up to Ellis, put his arms around him and kissed him. Ellis's whole face was bright red having not expected it and yet his heart was breaking in two. Francis pulled back and out of the corner of his eye saw Zoey's shocked expression on her face and then turned back around and opened the door.

"Move now!" Francis yelled as he tossed out the pipe bomb.

They all started running as soon as the zombies started chasing after it. Zoey quickly sniped the boomer who had been waiting for them outside the safe house and thankfully none of the vomit landed on any one of them.

"Keep your eyes out for that fucking smoker!" Francis yelled just as they heard the pipe bomb explode.

"Here they come!" Ellis yelled trying to concentrate on killing the zombies instead of thinking about Francis kissing him which he was still red.

"Damn they're fast runners!" Zoey cried the moment she felt some of them start pounding on her back

They ended up slowing down because of all the zombies that now started surrounding them and it gave the spitter a chance to do some serious damage as it spat at Ellis and Zoey who were closer to it then Francis was.

"This stuff sucks, man!" Ellis yelled trying to push zombies out of the way to get away from it.

Francis quickly killed the zombies that were surrounding them both as he slightly started to panic as soon as he heard them start screaming from the pain. Zoey and Ellis quickly moved away just before they could go down and they both took a pain pill from their bottles. Francis spotted the smoker lurking nearby and shot at it a couple of times before it finally died.

"I don't want you guys going down on me now so you guys stay ahead of me alright?" Francis said.

Both Ellis and Zoey were now breathing hard, but did as they were told and kept on running for as long as they could before they ended up slowing down again and taking another pill. This time they could hear a charger, hunter, and a jockey. They all groaned.

"Just what we need more trouble." Zoey sighed.

Francis started to sweat knowing he was in way better shape then the other two and to him that wasn't good since now he had to make sure that nothing else got on Ellis or Zoey.

"Hey, that spitter is still out there y'all!" Ellis told them.

"If it tries anything again I swear I'll shoot its fucking head off!" Francis yelled angrily.

Ellis turned just in time to see the charger behind Francis.

"Francis, behind you!" Ellis yelled.

Luckily Francis moved out of the way just in time and he quickly killed it just as the hunter pounced on him. Ellis limped his way over to Francis, shoved the thing off of him and killed it. Francis's chest started bleeding as he stood up and put his hand over it. Ellis turned white.

"Shit, man…" Ellis whispered.

Francis shook his head.

"I'm fine just keep going, Ellis!" Francis told him pushing him slightly to make him move.

"Jockey!" Zoey cried out as she saw it behind Francis and Ellis.

Ellis had also seen it and quickly killed it. Francis chuckled.

"Man you're getting good at this." Francis said.

"Well, you're the one who taught me." Ellis replied.

Francis didn't respond as he nodded and started moving again. As they got closer to leaving the city, a tank showed up forcing them to turn a different direction. Zoey tossed out a pipe bomb because the zombies were once again slowing them down and Ellis threw a molotov at the tank watching as it lit on fire. The spitter had shown up again and before it could spit at them Francis killed it and then went back to shooting at the tank. Just as it cornered them Francis started to panic thinking that it was just about to take them down when at the last moment it died.

"Damn, how long did it take to kill it?" Ellis asked.

"Forget about it. Let's just get back on that road." Francis replied

The zombies were once again chasing after them and Francis had told Ellis to save the last pipe bomb for when the rescue vehicle does show up. Another hunter, jockey, and smoker showed up and the moment the jockey jumped on top of Ellis it immediately fell to the floor dead. Francis glared angrily at it.

"That is the most fucking disgusting infected I have ever seen." Francis said.

"No, Francis I think the boomer has to be the grossest one especially the female." Zoey made a face as she pushed and killed the zombies attacking her and then helped to kill the ones that were attacking Francis and Ellis.

"Zoey, look out!" Ellis yelled.

Zoey turned just as the smoker grabbed her and started dragging her towards it. Ellis aimed and quickly killed it.

"You know how I said that I liked this zombie apocalypse? I change my mind I fucking hate it and I'm sick and tired of being around this all the time!" Francis said as he killed a hunter who was in the air heading towards him with a head shot.

Ellis looked at him wide eyed thinking that he was saying that he was giving up. Francis sighed.

"I just want to get out of here already." Francis said.

"How do you think Ellis and I feel?" Zoey asked.

Francis looked on ahead and saw that they were almost out of the city, but didn't see any sign of a rescue vehicle. He started to think that no one was coming, but then suddenly he heard what sounded like a car.

"Do you guys hear what I hear?" Francis asked.

"Yeah, I think it's a car." Zoey said

They all watched as it sped towards them, but just as they thought they were all going to be fine two tanks showed up and were coming at them from the sides.

"Shit, not good!" Francis yelled as they were forced to back up.

Zoey threw out a molotov in the direction of the tanks, but only got one so Francis had to use the last one on the other one.

"Ellis, throw the pipe bomb now!" Francis told him.

"I'm tryin…"

Francis frowned turning to see what was keeping him and he saw to his horror that Ellis was being attacked from all sides by the normal infected. He then heard and watched in horror as the tanks started getting closer to Zoey as she continued backing up as fast as she could. Ellis's eyes went wide as he heard his name being called out by someone he didn't think he was going to see again.

"ELLIS!" Nick yelled in horror as he, Louis, Rochelle, and Coach rushed in to help.

Ellis quickly went down and the tanks managed to corner Zoey and started pummeling her. Both of them started screaming.

"Hang on!" Louis and Rochelle yelled.

Louis and Rochelle went to help out Zoey while Nick and Coach tried to get the zombies off of Ellis. Suddenly both tanks and zombies changed their target and instead ran for Francis who had secretly grabbed a bile jar while they were out there and had poured it all over himself. He started running back towards the city making the whole army of infected chase after him. Nick started helping Ellis up.

"Easy there, overalls you're fine. We'll get you fixed up once we get out of here." Nick told him as he put an arm around him to help support him.

"Nick? What are you…?" Ellis started asking as he gasped for breath from the amount of pain he was in.

"I wasn't going to leave you behind, Ellis. We followed you." Nick replied looking at him worriedly.

"Where's Francis?" Louis asked as he and Rochelle helped Zoey up.

Both Ellis and Zoey looked up in alarm.

"Oh hell no!" Ellis struggled against Nick as he turned to see where Francis went and immediately sheer panic took over him as he saw that all the zombies were on him and the tanks had already died, but he assumed that they helped to take him down.

"FRANCIS!" Ellis screamed as he tried to break free of Nick's hold on him.

Nick was forced to grab him and hold on to him tight as he tried to drag him back to the car.

"Ellis, you can't help him now! He's…" Nick said.

"HE AIN'T DEAD! HE CAN'T BE!" Ellis continued screaming tears running down his face.

"Oh, Jesus…" Rochelle whispered.

Louis was wide eyed at the sight he was now seeing.

"Get to the car now!" Coach yelled.

Zoey started to wail as once again Louis was trying to get her to the car. Coach was forced to help Nick drag Ellis to the car since it seemed Ellis was just about to break free of Nick's grip.

"Ellis, don't! I don't want you going back out there!" Nick told him.

"I CAN'T LEAVE HIM HERE! FRANCIS! FRANCIS!" Ellis felt himself break as more tears fell down his face.

Louis, Rochelle, and Zoey were already in the car while it took both Nick and Coach to restrain Ellis from getting to Francis. The moment Ellis saw Francis's motionless bloody body he broke. He felt himself go numb as he went limp and didn't even try to stop Nick and Coach from bringing him to the car. They were able to fit four people in the back so the girls including Nick and Ellis sat in the back while Coach took over driving and Louis was in the front passenger's seat in complete shock. Just as another tank showed up Coach pushed the gas pedal and they were out of there.

"Ellis, talk to me man. At least look at me." Nick said shaking Ellis slightly who didn't seem to want to respond.

Zoey was shaking and still sobbing as Rochelle hugged her and tried to comfort her.

"Ellis? Hey, overalls." Nick said trying to get Ellis to say something or at least look at him.

Ellis wasn't aware at all of the fact that Nick was there with him let alone knowing that he had been rescued. All he could think about was that it was his fault that Francis was now gone. He started to feel a dark hole forming inside of him and he now started to be in a lot of pain more so then what the zombies did or could ever do to him. Ellis kept thinking now that he had no one left in his left and started thinking really bad thoughts. Nick looked at him worried as he made him turn to face him and Nick winced at the look he saw in Ellis's eyes almost as if he wasn't there anymore.

"Ellis? Overalls, you're starting to scare me here. Please just say something." Nick pleaded with him.

Nick felt his heart break from the words that came out of Ellis's mouth.

"He's gone and I let him die. It's all my fault." Ellis's bottom lip trembled.

After a few minutes of silence all that could be heard in the car was crying from Ellis, Zoey, and Louis.

Author's note: Again I wont be updating until Thursday night Friday morning so it's going to be awhile. I literally started crying when I wrote Francis's death scene. Yeah sorry I killed him off again, but hey if it was Zoey instead of Francis having a relationship with Ellis it would have been her so it's nothing personal because I love Francis and Zoey and all the characters. I'm so happy with how many reviews I've been getting. Thanks a lot it means a lot to me when you guys review because it makes me happy! I'm just hoping now that someone either updates their NickxEllis story or makes a new one because I'm kinda dying of boredom waiting for someone to start up an actual story instead of just one chapter. I love it when there's a story because I just don't really like one chapters as you can see from all my stories they are all stories not one chapters. Again I have a feeling you guys probably can't wait till Friday, but hey I need a break again so yeah sorry.


	10. My Immortal

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

For the next couple of days Coach talked with Nick and Rochelle and they all agreed that they needed to stay in the safe house for awhile due to the fact that the other half of the team was too depressed to fight right now. They were still in Arizona close to Phoenix, but still a good distance away so the zombies couldn't catch up to them right away. They had managed to find a safe house on the side of the road and decided that they weren't going to be able to go anywhere for a bit. Ever since Nick caught up with Ellis he hadn't left his side not once, but Ellis still wasn't reacting at all to the fact that Nick was there trying to get him to talk.

Rochelle sighed as soon as she entered their bedroom. Nick sat at the corner of the bed and Ellis looked like he was sleeping, but she already knew that wasn't the case.

"How is he doing?" Rochelle asked looking at Nick.

Nick shook his head looking down at Ellis sadly who was lying down on the bed clutching tightly to the comforter and silent tears kept falling down his face.

"He's still not talking?" Rochelle asked.

"No." Nick replied.

"Well, I finally got Zoey to talk to me. You're not going to believe what she told me." Rochelle said walking to the other side of the bed to look down at Ellis.

Nick snorted shaking his head.

"Why do I get the feeling it was about how she felt about that biker guy?" Nick said.

Rochelle frowned shaking her head and looked at him seriously.

"Actually no, Nick. You remember how Ellis was always talking about his friend?" Rochelle said still looking at him.

Nick raised an eyebrow looking at her.

"Yeah obviously. Why?" Nick asked.

Rochelle looked back down at Ellis and kneeled on the floor next to him and started rubbing his head which only made Ellis tighten his grip on the comforter and squeeze his eyes shut tight. Nick winced as he looked at Ellis in alarm.

"You mean…?" Nick whispered.

Rochelle nodded.

"Yeah. Apparently they found his body right in front of what used to be Wal-Mart and his guts were literally on the floor surrounding him. I can only imagine how Ellis must have reacted." Rochelle said tears in her eyes as she looked back up at Nick, "He's doing a lot worse then Louis and Zoey."

"I'm not so sure about that baby girl." Coach said as he entered the room, "Looks like Louis might just as well be in the same amount of pain that Ellis is. Of course that poor girl must be heartbroken as all hell, but Louis keeps saying how guilty he feels now about losing two of his teammates. I don't think he's ever gunna forgive himself."

Rochelle shook her head as she looked at him.

"I honestly think Ellis is worse off and how do I know that? For one Francis was the one who's been teaching him how to shoot his gun, two him and Ellis must have developed a strong enough relationship for Ellis to be unresponsive like this, three Francis was the one who saved Ellis's life since it was him who wanted to get him to a safer location and get whatever glass that was in his back out, and four Francis also tried to comfort Ellis when they found his friend." Rochelle replied.

Nick put a hand on Ellis's shoulder and gently shook him slightly.

"Ellis? It's Nick. I'm right here, overalls and I'm not going anywhere." Nick told him.

The only response was a quiet sob start to turn into actual cries. Nick bit his lip as he lied down next to Ellis and put his arms around him. Coach motioned for Rochelle to follow him out of the room. As soon as they were and had closed the door Coach sighed and nodded.

"I guess you're right, Ro. Hell the boy knew his friend for who knows how long and Francis treated Ellis better then any of us ever did." Coach said rubbing the back of his head worriedly.

"Did you hear what he said when we got him out of that city?" Rochelle asked.

"You mean when Nick was trying to get him to say somethin? Yeah I heard. The kid is blaming himself for Francis's death. Shit the way he spoke though it's almost as if he's…" Coach hesitated.

"Dead inside? Yeah I noticed that too." Rochelle bit her lip and looked back at the closed door.

Silence fell between them as they heard cries coming from Zoey's room.

"I'm guessing she isn't doing any better." Coach said.

Rochelle shook her head sadly.

"I've been sleeping with her hoping it would give her some comfort to know that someone was here for her, but the way she keeps waking up in the middle of the night…" Rochelle winced remembering how loud Zoey screamed out for Bill and Francis.

"Yeah, you know what? Forget what I said before. I think Louis might be doin slightly better then the youngins. He's at least responsive and is tryin to get himself to do sumethin." Coach said just as Louis came out of his room and made his way to the guns and once again emptied the clips and refilled them again.

Both Rochelle and Coach sighed shaking their heads having already told him not to worry about it, but he kept insisting that he needed something to do since they weren't making their way to California or fighting zombies right now. They were still worried about him as well since he had admitted to them before that he couldn't deal with the loss of Bill and now after losing Francis and having told said person that he wished he was dead, it was obvious to them that Louis was trying to keep himself together as best as he could even if it meant doing something to keep his mind off of his dead teammates.

"I'm going to go check on Zoey again." Rochelle said as she headed back upstairs before turning back to look at Coach worriedly.

Coach smiled slightly at her.

"Everything's going to be alright, baby girl." Coach told her.

"I hope so." Rochelle replied.

Back in Nick and Ellis's room Ellis was desperately trying to keep himself from bursting out crying and still he couldn't feel just how close Nick was to him. All he knew was that ever day the hole in his chest was getting bigger almost to the point of it consuming him. He also kept seeing Francis in his dreams with his still bloody chest and was looking at him worriedly.

'I'm so sorry, Francis. If I had done what you had told me to do you would have still been here.' Ellis said as he saw Francis try to talk to him, but he couldn't hear anything.

Every time Ellis woke up his body automatically went to auto-pilot. He still was unable to see that Nick, Rochelle, Coach, Zoey, and Louis were there with him. All he knew and felt now was that he was alone and started to wonder if Zoey was killed too.

'It's all mah fault that I lost not only my mom, but my friends Dave, Keith, Zoey and…' Ellis bit his lip hard the moment he thought of Francis and memories immediately ran through his mind until it stopped at the part where Francis kissed him 'Francis.'

Ellis suddenly started screaming out in pain as he felt the hole inside him get bigger. Nick held on to him tightly eyes going wide as Ellis started to have a panic attack. Nick got on top of him and pinned his arms down on the bed.

"Ellis, look at me! I'm right here!" Nick yelled.

The door busted open and Coach watched in horror as he ran to help keep Ellis from hurting himself. As soon as Ellis finally calmed down Coach sighed with relief and noticed that Zoey, Rochelle, and Louis had watched.

"W-What's going on? E-Ellis?" Zoey whispered eyes wide as she started to think that something was wrong with Ellis.

Louis swallowed and looked at Coach. Rochelle was too shocked to say anything.

"We can't stay here y'all. I think we might have already by now attracted the zombies attention to where we're at." Coach swallowed.

"H-He's right. Staying here is only going to get us in more trouble if the zombies haven't followed us all the way out here already." Louis said.

"We may have driven a good distance away from the city, but it ain't far enough to not be followed." Coach replied.

"So what do we do now, Coach? Should we continue to head towards California?" Rochelle asked.

Coach looked around and saw that they all needed him to be the leader now. Nick obviously was trying to look after Ellis, Zoey was falling apart, Louis didn't even want to try to lead anymore, and Rochelle looked like she was more nervous then certain about what was going to happen.

"It's the only plan we got now, baby girl." Coach told her, "I'd say we leave sooner rather then later and hopefully next town or city we're in we'll fill up the car again with gas. You hear that, Nick?" Coach asked.

Nick didn't hear what Coach had said. He had been too busy looking at Ellis wondering if he was going to be ok or not. Nick swallowed having still not let go of him as he saw and felt Ellis move slightly beneath him.

"Nick!" Coach said finally gaining his attention.

"What?" Nick asked looking at him.

Coach sighed.

"The next city or town we find we're gunna need to refill the car up with gas. You got that?" Coach asked.

"Yeah, I got it." Nick said.

"Good now we'd better move now before the infected can get the drop on us." Coach said as he made his way to get whatever he needed before leaving.

Louis, Rochelle, and Zoey followed behind him just as Zoey asked if Ellis was going to be alright. As if on cue Ellis opened his eyes and started to get up. Nick didn't want to let him go and so decided to help him up and move him towards the front where everyone was picking up a gun, health pack, pills/adrenaline, etc.

"Nick, you can let go of him now. You are gunna need to be able to shoot you know if they're out there just waiting for us to leave." Coach told him.

Nick reluctantly let go of Ellis as he picked up a random gun, but still kept his eyes on him and watched as Ellis picked up his usual weapons (two pistols and sniper). Zoey walked up to Ellis, eyes still really red from crying as she looked at him.

"Ellis? A-Are you alright?" Zoey asked sniffling.

Ellis didn't respond to her as his body was once again in auto-pilot.

"I don't think he's doing so good, Zoey." Rochelle told her also looking at Ellis worriedly.

"I-I guess not. I mean I guess I can understand why he's like this what with Francis kissing him and all just before he…" Zoey started to sob again.

Nick looked at Ellis completely horrified. Coach and Rochelle winced.

"So that's why he's not responding to any of us." Coach said.

Ellis once again had that same lifeless look he had before when they had gotten him out of the city. Nick knew that this wasn't a good time to be jealous, but man was he seriously pissed when he heard that. One look at Ellis though and his jealousy was immediately forgotten.

"Should we get going now?" Louis asked looking out at the road and saw that nothing was there.

"Yeah, just head straight to the car I'll cover y'all in case something happens." Coach replied.

Louis was the first to leave the safe house, followed by the girls, then Coach, and last was Nick and Ellis. They kind of expected for something to happen, but that didn't stop them for being unprepared when they heard and saw that a bunch of zombies had surrounded the car that was behind the safe house and were making their way to the survivors.

Coach growled.

"Dammit, I should have known that they would have tried something like this!" Coach said and immediately everyone started shooting at the zombies.

Ellis kept hearing voices in his head and wasn't sure if it was his own consciousness or what, but he was obeying it like he would his own teammates. He was shooting down zombies left and right, but the moment Francis suddenly appeared in front of him he flinched.

"Charger!" Rochelle yelled.

Zombies had managed to separate Nick from Ellis and he couldn't see him above all of their heads.

"Ellis!" Nick yelled out.

Coach barely reacted in time as the Charger ran at Louis and was just about to slam him into the ground, but was killed just before it could do that.

"Thanks, man." Louis said as he got up.

"Yer welcome now look around for any sign of that smoker cause I hear one of them around somewhere." Coach told him.

Ellis couldn't feel the zombies that were attacking him. He just watched Francis start to panic, blood still dripping from his chest, as he pointed up at the top of the safe house. Ellis looked up and saw that the smoker was looking down at him. Ellis smiled slightly and looked back at Francis who was now horrified and tried to signal him to move away or at least shoot at it. Ellis did neither as he just stood there and let the smoker wrap its tongue around him and he started to feel himself suffocate. Ellis heard a voice calling out to him in his head as he started to lose consciousness, but then the smoker's tongue was broken and the zombies that were attacking him were quickly killed. He felt the tongue being removed from his body.

"Ellis, fuck why didn't you call out for help?" Nick asked as he quickly removed the tongue and tossed it to the side.

Ellis started coughing and Nick helped him to stand up.

"Guys, hurry we can get to the car now!" Rochelle cried out once all the normal infected were killed.

"Go, NOW!" Coach yelled as he helped Zoey to her feet after having been jumped on by a jockey and fell to the floor the moment it was killed.

Coach waited for the others to get in the car first as he covered them from getting attacked by the special infected. The girls were the first to get in, then it was Louis, and finally Nick pulled Ellis and then pushed him into the car right before a hunter could pounce on him. Coach quickly put a bullet in its head before it could get at Nick and then ran to the drivers side once Nick got in and closed the back passengers door. Coach killed the smoker that was still on top of the safe house before getting in, closing the door, and starting the car.

"Is everyone alright?" Coach asked as he drove over a spitter and got back on the road.

"Yeah, I think so." Zoey replied.

"Good, cause I don't want to go and lose somebody else here." Coach said.

"Trust me none of us want that." Louis told him.

Zoey shook her head and then looked at Ellis worriedly.

Nick leaned closer to Ellis and whispered in his ear.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing out there, overalls? You could have gotten yourself killed." Nick told him.

Ellis didn't respond. He simply looked down with a haunted look on his face. That was when Nick had a horrible thought cross his mind.

'He didn't cry out like he usually does. He did that on purpose he wanted to…' Nick thought horrified.

Nick had never been more scared then what he was feeling right now.

Author's note: ok I'm not making this up. Yesterday or the day before I played as Nick on dead center and didn't heal Ellis at all the entire time. I only healed Rochelle or Coach mostly because I was pissed at Ellis for always being the last person willing to heal me (its usually Rochelle unfortunately) and when we got on the elevator to fill up Jimmy Gibbs car, he glanced at me with a hurt look on his face. I didn't know there was a chance that I could hurt a computers feelings holy shit! 0.0 anyway I was so pissed that at the last minute he tried to heal me or give me pain pills but I refused the health pack and before he could give me his pills we drove off in the car. When I started Dark Carnival he was all into helping me out and he was the first one trying to heal me, but again I refused. I finally let him heal me after the second or third time he tried to lol stubborn kid. I shouldn't call him that though im younger then him! Ok you guys probably could care less about that so anyway back to the story. Ellis's suicide attempt will most likely be in tomorrow nights chapter or the following one not sure. After that I honestly don't know where to take the story except to I guess ending it once they're safe in California. The whole Francis haunting Ellis I guess you can say I got the idea from Twilight, but hey Francis IS dead Edward was just plain gone big difference. Have you ever tried staying mad at Ellis? I can't do it because I end up breaking at some point. Thank you so much for all the reviews. Im really glad I continued the story because at first I didn't get a lot so I thought I wasn't going to continue, but here I am about to end it pretty soon. Yeah im starting to wonder if I should make another L4D story since that's all im into right now.


	11. Only He Can Save Him

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

If Nick thought that Ellis couldn't possibly get any worse, he was dead wrong. It had only been a couple of hours since they left the safe house and Ellis hadn't cried let alone move and he continued to look down at the floor of the car. He wasn't blinking and had looked as though he had gone catatonic.

"He's getting worse…" Rochelle whispered as she looked at Ellis after having watched Nick again try to talk to him.

Coach and Louis kept their attention on the road. Zoey, being seated in between Nick and Rochelle, leaned towards Ellis and tugged on his sleeve. Nick moved slightly feeling uncomfortable that Zoey was trying to cling on to Ellis.

"Ellis, please say or do something already. Y-You're making us worry here." Zoey said biting her lip as she looked directly at him.

"Zoey, I think he might be already too far gone…" Rochelle again whispered as she held on to Ellis's hat

Nick turned to glare at her.

"He's still here, Rochelle!" Nick told her.

"His body yes, but his mind…" Rochelle was unsure of how to respond as she saw that Zoey was about to start crying again and Nick, whether he noticed or not, looked like he was about to lose it as well.

"He's still here." Nick said emphasizing each word.

"Nick, you know as well as the rest of us that the boy hasn't been himself since we left Phoenix. In fact he's getting worse instead of better. Whatever yer doin it isn't working to help him." Coach replied.

"It's not that, Coach. Ellis isn't responding to anyone not even to Zoey." Rochelle said sadly, "I think Francis's death might have already…"

"Already what, Rochelle?" Nick asked daring her to finish what she was going to say.

Rochelle bit her lip and looked away.

"…already killed him."

Silence filled the entire car as Rochelle continued to look away from Nick and Zoey let go of Ellis and also looked down at the floor of the car with tears in her eyes. Nick shook his head refusing to believe that Ellis was giving up, but after thinking how Ellis didn't yell out for help when the smoker had him, he started to believe that Rochelle might be right.

"Goddammit." Nick cursed as he pulled Ellis close to him and whispered so only Ellis could hear him, "Ellis, you're not alone here. You still have friends who need your help. You can't just give up and…" Nick swallowed not wanting to admit to himself what Ellis was probably thinking.

Ellis didn't say anything, but he finally blinked and started moving trying to get himself into a more comfortable position. Nick sighed relieved to see that Ellis was at least still there.

"You got him moving again." Rochelle said as she looked at Nick in surprise.

Zoey looked up at them with wide eyes.

"I guess, he just moved on his own." Nick said hoping to get another response from him as he continued to look at Ellis.

"Nick, I don't know if you should be happy about this, but I think you might be the only one who can save him." Rochelle told him.

Nick didn't respond. He simply looked at Ellis's face who was still struggling to keep the pain from coming out again. Nick had his arm firmly around Ellis feeling completely afraid that if he were to let go of him, Ellis would disappear. Zoey sniffled as she looked at Nick also starting to think that he was the only person that could help Ellis now seeing as how Ellis finally reacted once Nick put his arm around him and started talking to him again. Zoey turned to look at Rochelle.

"Does he…?" Zoey started to ask.

Rochelle nodded smiling slightly.

"Yeah, but he just doesn't want to admit it. It's plain obvious now to everyone that he does care about Ellis." Rochelle whispered to her.

Zoey looked back at Nick.

"Are you sure he's going to be able to save him?" Zoey asked.

"To be honest I'm not sure, but he's the only one that can since Ellis used to always look up to him and would always follow after him whenever we got separated or had to, to look for ammo or food." Rochelle told her.

Rochelle was definitely worried as she knew that Nick wasn't the type to open up and say what he actually felt.

'Nick, for you to save him you're going to have to swallow your pride and just tell him how much you need him.' Rochelle thought still having doubts that he'll do that.

"Hey, just curious where are we?" Louis asked looking around and then at the map that he had brought with them from the safe house.

Coach brought the car to a halt and glanced at the map.

"Looks like we might be barely approachin the border of Arizona and California." Coach replied as he started driving again.

"Oh thank god we're almost out of here!" Zoey said relieved.

Coach chuckled.

"There's still quite a distance before we get to San Diego." Coach told her.

Rochelle frowned.

"Is that where people have been saying to go to?" Rochelle asked.

"Yeah I read it on the walls back at the safe room." Coach replied.

"I heard that, that city is really big." Zoey said, "How are we going to find where the evac center is at?"

"I guess we'll look for signs that'll point us to where it's at." Louis told her.

"Well, it's best not to worry about it for now cause we ain't getting there tonight." Coach said.

Rochelle looked out the window having not noticed just how dark it was outside.

"I didn't realize it was already late." Rochelle said.

"No worries there, baby girl. There's a small town up ahead. We can gas up the car in the mornin." Coach replied.

Ellis looked out the window and saw that they were driving over a bridge and he could hear the sounds of water moving just underneath them.

"Is that a river?" Louis asked as he looked out the window.

"Sounds like it." Zoey replied.

They couldn't really see how far the bridge was from the water, but they figured it had to be close.

"Anyone want to go for a swim?" Louis asked joking around.

Rochelle laughed.

"No, thanks. I think I'd rather wait till we get to San Diego." Rochelle said.

Ellis couldn't help but wonder why the voice inside his head sounded scared. It had broken him out of his trance that he didn't notice that he had been in and started looking around for any sign of anyone, but himself.

'Was that Francis?' Ellis asked himself.

Nick looked at Ellis worried wondering why suddenly Ellis was looking around almost as if he was looking for something.

"Overalls, what…"

"Francis? Is that you?" Ellis asked.

Nick winced and immediately there was an awkward silence as he, Zoey, Rochelle, and Louis turned to look at him.

"Shit, man." Louis whispered.

It was completely quite the rest of the way until they finally got into town and immediately found the safe house. Coach parked the car right next to it and everyone got out. Ellis continued to look around hoping for a response, but nothing. He sighed and went inside the safe house, Nick and the others following right behind him.

'Am I goin crazy or sumethin? I coulda sworn I heard him.' Ellis thought as he immediately went into one of the bedrooms.

"Nick, you might want to keep an eye on him." Coach told him and then looked at the others, "I'll stand watch while the rest of you get some sleep."

"You sure, Coach? You don't want any of us waking you up so we can take over later?" Louis asked.

"I'm sure besides y'all haven't had a decent night sleep yet and its about time you got some rest." Coach said looking at him and Zoey.

"Thanks, Coach." Zoey said as she and Rochelle headed to their room that was next to Nick and Ellis's.

Nick closed the door behind him as he watched Ellis slowly crawl into bed. Ellis looked at the empty spot next to him sadly and almost immediately felt the need to start crying again, but held it in as he covered himself with the covers and turned to face the other way. Nick watched as Ellis started to shake and he slowly climbed into bed beside him and wrapped his arms around him.

"I'm not going anywhere, Ellis. I just wish you could actually see that it's me who is here with you right now." Nick said.

Rochelle couldn't help but feel that something was wrong. She kept pacing back and forth in her room making Zoey look at her worried.

"Rochelle? What's wrong?" Zoey asked.

Rochelle shook her head.

"I don't know I just have this feeling I can't really describe it, but it doesn't feel good." Rochelle replied.

"Is it about Ellis? I'm very worried myself especially when he mentioned Francis." Zoey said sadly.

"I know Nick's there with him, but I'm starting to think will Nick be enough for Ellis?" Rochelle asked.

"He's got to be. You said so yourself that he's the only one who can help Ellis." Zoey replied.

"Thing is Nick is totally different from Francis. Nick's the kind of guy who's a pessimist and absolutely refuses to admit to anything especially when it concerns Ellis." Rochelle explained.

Zoey bit her lip.

"Francis was the complete opposite….so…."

"Yeah? So who do you think Ellis is going to choose?" Rochelle asked.

Both girls were silent for a minute. Rochelle sighed shaking her head.

"Maybe I'm worrying too much. I mean all of us are here. We'll know if something happens in their room right?" Rochelle asked.

"Rochelle, from what I've seen when it comes to Nick I don't think we got anything to worry about. We both have seen how he's been looking after Ellis so I'm telling you now that I don't think anything's going to happen." Zoey said trying to reassure her and herself.

Rochelle slowly nodded and climbed into bed.

"I guess you're right, Zoey." Rochelle said.

It hadn't taken long for everyone to have fallen asleep. Even Coach was now snoring as he was lying against the wall with a gun now lying at his side. Nick still had his arms around Ellis as he slept peacefully. The only one who seemed to be unable to sleep was Ellis who was again clutching tightly to the comforter while he dreamt about Francis and the rest of his loved ones. Ellis watched as his mother and Dave had been strangled and pounded to death by a smoker and charger. Then he watched as Keith was ripped open by a hunter and it started eating his insides. Finally two tanks and a group of normal infected were once again on top of Francis. His frantic screams and blood spilling everywhere was what jolted Ellis out of his dream. He had already started crying again and he gritted his teeth against the pain and the guilt he was feeling.

'I can't take this no more!' Ellis thought to himself as he got out of bed and left the bedroom.

Ellis clutched his chest as the pain grew bigger and he instantly remembered hearing Francis telling him to throw the pipe bomb. He still had it with him as he put it on the table next to the safe room door before opening it and ran outside.

"I fucking hate you, you stupid hick. You're going to get us all killed!" Nick's voice said in his head making Ellis wince.

"Ellis, sweetie can this wait?" Rochelle's voice was heard next.

"Not now, boy. Can't you see I'm a bit busy here?" Coach said.

"Ellis, how on earth did you manage to get yourself in that kind of trouble?" Louis asked angrily.

"Ellis, you've got us right, Zoey?" Francis told him.

Ellis's heart skipped a beat remembering how Francis was never mad at him and neither was Zoey.

"We can all be one happy family." Zoey's voice.

Ellis felt like throwing up as he continued running. He hadn't seen that Francis had been watching him. Francis's eyes went wide from horror as he knew what Ellis was going to try to do. He immediately went to the safe room where the others were at and quickly made his way to Nick's room and entered his dream. Nick was obviously pissed at Francis the moment he showed up.

"Well, I have no fucking idea why you're here, but it does give me the chance to fucking kick your ass!" Nick told him glaring at him.

"Hey would you calm down already? Look I need you to believe me when I say that Ellis isn't with you." Francis told him.

"No shit, asshole he's with you!" Nick growled clenching his fists.

"No, but he soon will be if you don't fucking do something!" Francis yelled back at him.

"What are you talking about?" Nick asked confused.

"Just wake the fuck up already!" Francis said starting to get agitated.

Nick jolted awake and quickly sat up. He mumbled angrily to himself.

"What the hell's his problem?" Nick looked next to him and saw that Ellis was gone.

Nick right away started to panic as he jumped out of bed and ran out of the bedroom. His eyes were wide as the safe room door was still slightly open.

"Coach, we've got a problem!" Nick said shaking him awake.

"Ugh, what the hell boy? I was tryin to sleep…" Coach said annoyed.

"I thought you said you were going to stand watch!" Nick roared.

Coach raised an eyebrow as he looked at him.

"What are you pissed off about now?" Coach sighed.

"Ellis is gone, Coach!" Nick said no longer caring that he sounded scared because he really was.

Coach immediately stood up and glared angrily at him.

"I thought I told you to keep an eye on him, Nick!" Coach growled.

"I fucking fell asleep alright! We don't have time for this right now!" Nick yelled.

All the yelling had woken up Louis and the girls as they entered the room.

"What's going on?" Zoey asked yawning.

"Ellis took off is what's going on!" Nick said angrily.

"What?" Both girls were now wide awake and completely shocked.

"He can't have gone too far. Everyone split up we'll cover more ground that way." Coach told them as they all left the safe room and took off in different directions.

Author's note: For people who haven't read or doesn't remember what I said before in my authors notes I did say that I wasn't bringing anyone back from the dead and I also said that this fic is going to end up being NickxEllis so no worries for people who want that couple to happen. As usual tomorrow nights chapter will be the last one for this weekend and since im pretty sure the story is about to come to an end the last chapter or chapters will either be sometime this week or next weekend depending on how I end each chapter. More then likely next weekend since I have a feeling im going to be making more then one chapter besides the next one. Once this story has come to an end I am still going to post a poll on my profile and you guys can vote on what story you liked best.


	12. Too Late?

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

Nick had no idea how long he had been searching for Ellis. All he knew was that with each passing second he was growing more nervous as he ran both his hands through his hair and gritted his teeth as he searched everywhere; inside buildings, dark alleys, wherever he thought Ellis could have gone.

"Ellis!" Nick yelled out not caring if the infected were around and had heard him as he removed his hands from his hair and cupped them around his mouth to call out for him again, "Overalls, where the fuck are you?"

He got no response except the sound of the wind gently blowing around him. Nick lowered his arms and tightened his fists.

'Why did I fucking fall asleep? You said to yourself that you would look after him not let him out of your fucking sights!' Nick thought angrily to himself.

Nick suddenly heard movement coming from behind him and he quickly turned around hoping that it was Ellis. Instead he found himself face to face with Coach.

"Please fucking tell me that you found him." Nick pleaded.

Coach sighed shaking his head.

"No, Nick. No one can seem to find him and we've been looking for a good fifteen minutes now." Coach told him.

Nick finally noticed the others behind him. Zoey had turned completely white and Louis kept repeating the word shit all over again. Rochelle was looking at him sadly.

"He's gotta be around here somewhere I mean this is a small town right?" Nick asked starting to panic.

Coach and Rochelle looked at him worried having never seen him act like this before.

"He could be anywhere by now. Ellis has always been the fastest runner out of all of us." Rochelle said.

Nick bit his lip.

"Goddammit. Some help here would be nice you fucking greasy vest wearing monkey!" Nick yelled.

"What on earth are you talking about, Nick?" Coach asked.

"That lame ass biker guy! He's the one who fucking woke me up and alerted me to the fact that Ellis was gone!" Nick replied.

Louis and Zoey looked at him in surprise.

"Francis actually told you that?" Louis asked.

"Well, it was just a stupid ass dream which for some weird reason he showed up in and just happened to be right." Nick said agitated and then sighed and started wondering why he didn't feel Ellis get out of bed in the first place.

Zoey looked at Louis in surprise.

"Do you think Francis might still be around?" Zoey asked.

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he was." Louis replied.

"So, then he probably already knows just how depressed Ellis has been." Zoey said.

"He probably even knows where Ellis is right now. It's just too bad there isn't any way of contacting him." Rochelle said.

"Guys, if we don't hurry up and find Ellis, he's probably going to…." Zoey swallowed.

"Ellis!" Nick yelled out again, "You better not do anything stupid, you stupid hick!"

"Nick, by the time we find him he's probably already going to be..."

Nick glared at Coach.

"Don't you dare fucking finish what you were going to say." Nick said coldly, "I'm going to find him and I'm going to bring his ass back to the safe house and beat some sense back into that kid's head!"

Rochelle looked at him wondering when he suddenly started being the optimist.

"I hope you find him, Nick because it seems like Francis also doesn't want him to do anything drastic since he told you and no one else that Ellis had left." Rochelle said.

"It might already be too late. We've been out here looking for him for too long that he's probably already killed himself by now." Coach said.

Nick punched Coach hard enough to make him fall to the floor.

"What the hell, Nick?" Coach asked rubbing his cheek and looked at him angrily.

"He's not….he didn't…" Nick struggled for words.

Coach slowly stood up still looking at him angrily.

"Look I'm just tryin to be a realist here. If he suddenly ran off like that when he's been hurtin as much as we've seen him been hurtin then you know that he's serious about what's he tryin to do. Hell he even let that smoker get at him and didn't even cry out for help!" Coach said.

Nick looked at him completely surprised the others were in total shock.

"Now don't give me that look, Nick. I saw what was happenin. The only reason why I couldn't get to him right away was because there were too many zombies in the way and a jockey ended up showin up at about the same time and it latched itself onto Zoey." Coach said.

"He already t-tried to?" Zoey asked her voice quivered.

"Look believe what you want to, but the feeling I'm getting is that he's already…" Coach was once again cut off as Nick grabbed Coach's shirt.

"Don't you fucking dare say that again." Nick told him, "He's alive and I can fucking feel it."

Nick roughly released Coach.

"We're going to continue looking, Nick but I'm also starting to think that we're not going to find him in time especially when we have no idea which way he went." Rochelle said sadly.

"She might be right, man." Louis said.

Nick glared angrily at Rochelle, Coach, and Louis.

"You know what? Screw all of you. You just watch he'll still be alive when I bring him back to the safe house." Nick told them and began walking away.

Coach, Rochelle, and Louis decided that they were going to go back to the safe house, but Zoey said she wanted to keep looking so Rochelle went with her while Coach and Louis waited at the safe house in case Ellis returned which was highly unlikely, but still was a possibility.

"Why is it that I'm the only one who thinks that Ellis is still alive?" Nick asked mumbling to himself.

As he continued walking he started to feel the wind grow stronger and it started to slightly push him in the other direction. Nick rolled his eyes.

'Great just what I need.' Nick thought sarcastically.

Nick stopped for a second as he thought he heard something.

"What the hell does it take to get you to hear me? You're going the wrong way dumbass!"

Nick's eyebrow and upper lip started twitching as he immediately recognized the voice. He turned around to see where Francis was at, but couldn't see him.

"You're really starting to piss me off do you know that?" Nick said angrily.

"Well about time you can hear me! It took you long enough." Francis said.

"Whatever where the hell are you?" Nick asked.

"Seems like only the kid can see me. You on the other hand can only hear me and don't ask me why that is because I don't know what to tell ya." Francis responded.

Nick snorted shaking his head.

"So, what, is it you who's controlling the wind?" Nick asked.

"I guess I was getting desperate. I was yelling at you the whole time while you were looking around for the kid." Francis sighed.

"Where is he? Is he still alright?" Nick asked.

Francis was silent for a second.

"Hey, biker guy did you hear me? Is Ellis ok?" Nick asked again starting to get worried.

"How fast can you run? Because he's about to jump off a bridge and into the river." Francis responded.

Nick turned completely white as his eyes went wide remembering when they drove over the bridge and Ellis was looking out the window.

"Fuck…Overalls…"

"Dude, I don't want him killing himself so start running as fast as you can because even running it's still going to take you ten minutes to reach him." Francis told him.

Nick shook his head as he felt his heart start to pound hard in his chest as he started running.

"I don't know which way to go!" Nick suddenly said.

"Just keep going in the same direction the wind is blowing!" Francis replied.

Ellis had ran until he finally made it back to the very bridge that he remembered crossing over in the car. He slowly went over the bridge railing and stayed holding on to it as he looked down at the river underneath him. Part of him was scared of letting go, but the other part that said he needed to let go started to overcome him.

'There's nuthin left for you here and you want to know why? It's cause it was yer fault for lettin them all die. You could have just stayed at home with yer mom and Dave instead of meetin up with Keith and then gettin separated from him. It's killin you to know that Nick was right about you. You got everyone killed even Francis who actually liked you.'

Ellis looked up and closed his eyes and immediately pictured them all smiling at him, but the moment he reopened them he actually saw Francis right in front of him. He looked like he was yelling at him and was motioning for him to get back on the bridge. Ellis smiled slightly as he looked at him then back down at the water.

"Francis, I'm really sorry I got you killed. You were good to me and treated me the way I thought I was never going to be treated. You taught me how to properly use a gun and got me to stop shaking every time I held it in mah hand. You saved mah life twice now and defended me when Louis was mad at me. You comforted me when I saw Keith and most of all I knew you really truly cared about me enough to sacrifice yourself for me and Zoey, but…" Ellis bit his lip, "…what hurts the most is that I never did anything to help you out. All I did was alert a witch and then a tank and then I couldn't even toss out that stupid pipe bomb that you had told me to throw and it cost you yer life. If anyone should have died then it should have been me not you. I already told mahself that I was never gunna forgive mahself if one of you guys got killed and now…I just wanted you to know….that I appreciated everything that you have done and I'm sorry to have caused you a lot of trouble."

Ellis looked up again at Francis who was now looking at him horrified. Ellis took a deep breath in and then let it out as he once again looked back down at the water and slowly let go of the railing and then finally he jumped into the river. The first thing he felt was how cold the water was. It was freezing to the point that, that alone was hurting his body. He didn't even try to get himself to swim back to the surface for air. He let his body start to sink as he struggled with himself to make himself swallow as much water as he could. His vision started to darken as he felt himself losing energy and that was when he started remembering the past couple of days. Ellis was confused when he saw that Nick and the others were there with him and Nick in particular looked like he was practically clinging to him.

'What the hell? I don't remember this.' Ellis thought.

Ellis watched as Nick stayed by his side and tried to get him to talk to him. It then switched to Nick wrapping his arms around Ellis while they were trying to get some sleep.

'Nah, no way in hell Nick is…'

The scene after that changed to when Ellis was having his panic attack and Ellis's eyes went wide when he saw the look on Nick's face. After that it came to when the smoker had him and Nick had come to his rescue and finally…

"Ellis, you're not alone here. You still have friends who need your help. You can't just give up and…"

Again Nick was starting to get to Ellis making him bite his lip.

'But I thought….he hated me.'

A single air bubble escaped Ellis's lips as his eyes were now closed and his body continued to drift downward. If Francis was still alive he would have already started to have a heart attack as he went back to where Nick was at.

"You have to get to the bridge now, man!" Francis said.

"About fucking time you came back! I was wondering where you went! How close am I to it?" Nick asked.

"Not far now. Uh, your name is Nick right?" Francis asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Nick, Ellis already jumped."

Nick immediately felt his heart stop beating for at least a second before he started running even faster.

"ELLIS!" Nick screamed.

Zoey gasped as she turned her head in the direction she heard the screaming coming from.

"Was that Nick?" Zoey asked feeling that something bad had happened.

Rochelle nodded.

"Yeah and it doesn't sound good. Let's go!" Rochelle told her as they started running to catch up with Nick.

Back at the safe house Ellis's hat fell from the kitchen table and it landed on the floor. Louis frowned as he went to pick it up.

"That was weird." Louis said as he picked it up and looked at it then looked at Coach who had a sad look on his face, "Coach?"

Coach closed his eyes as he started praying.

Author's note: You guys probably hate me right now for this cliffhanger, but hey it gives me more to write for next weekend and hopefully by then I'll get more reviews for this chapter since this one and the next one is what I was really anxious to post. I know I've been a little late updating my story, but it does take me a good couple of hours to write a decent chapter. I actually hadn't expected for this story to get as much attention as it has been getting, 19 story alerts, 10 favorites and 21 reviews and almost 3,000 hits. Actually I thought at first that no one was going to read this but man was I wrong. Thanks everyone for getting me to continue with this story. I'm also curious you don't have to tell me if you don't want to if you plan on voting for your favorite story of mine so far on L4D there will be 4 choices obviously three for my stories and one for undecided. Also if you add me on xbox live message me to let me know who you are because ive been getting random friend requests and I've got no idea who those people are. Just look on my profile and my gamertag is on it if you want to add me.


	13. Ellis's Death

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

"I don't understand…why is Nick even…huggin me?" Ellis had been completely surprised never having expected to see Nick look so vulnerable.

"Believe it or not he cares about you more then you know, man."

Ellis turned around and saw that Francis was looking at him sadly as he had his hands in his pockets. Ellis looked at him in surprise as he started to feel himself get emotional again.

"Francis, I…" Ellis swallowed unsure of what to say.

Francis smiled at him slightly.

"Don't worry about it, Ellis. I heard everything that you had to say. Hell I've even been checking up on you, Zoey, and Louis long enough to know that you guys haven't exactly been doing so well, but Ellis, man you shouldn't have put all that guilt on yourself because it wasn't your fault for your mother's, your other friends', and my death." Francis told him.

Ellis shook his head.

"That ain't true. The day the infection hit and I found my mom and Dave's bodies was the same day I decided to meet up with Keith outside a hotel. We were gunna go look for sumethin to get his girlfriend when she came back since it was about to be her birthday and the whole time I had a weird feeling that sumethin wasn't right." Ellis said.

"You didn't know what was going to happen though." Francis replied.

"It didn't matter. The moment the zombies showed up and I lost sight of where Keith went was one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made. The others were for not goin back home right away to check up on my mom and Dave and the last one….was for not throwin out that pipe bomb like you told me to." Ellis said sadly.

Francis walked up to him and hugged him. Ellis looked at him completely surprised since he thought that Francis might have been mad at him for getting him killed.

"Y-Yer not mad?" Ellis asked.

"Ellis, why would I be mad? It was my decision to sacrifice myself to get you and Zoey out of that mess that you guys were in." Francis said backing away from him to look at him.

"Yeah, but you wouldn't have had to do that if I had just…"

"You were completely surrounded by zombies so there was no way you could have tossed it out. I don't blame or hate you man for being unable to throw it." Francis told him, "Listen I know I don't know your mom or your friends, but just from knowing you for a short amount of time, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't hate or blame you either for what happened to them."

Ellis looked at him in surprise making Francis smile.

"It would be very hard to get someone to hate you, man." Francis said.

"Wasn't that hard to get on Nick's nerves." Ellis mumbled.

Francis chuckled and shook his head.

"The guys a total dumbass!" Francis said.

Ellis looked at him seriously.

"He ain't. He's the one who knew exactly what he was doin. I mean after all he was the one lookin out for Rochelle and Coach's safety. He was right not to look after me since all I did was get mahself into more trouble." Ellis said.

Francis smirked at him.

"Dude, that's not the reason why he didn't look after you."

"How do you know?"

"You'd be surprised what you can do being dead. Anyway the actual reason why he didn't want to look after you like he did with your other teammates was because he didn't want to touch you." Francis said.

"Touch me? Wha…" Ellis was confused.

"I know at first I didn't get it either, but finally I found out it was because he was having enough trouble trying to hide the fact that he turned red every time he was around you and he decided to make it look as though he hated you instead of liking you to cover up how red his face always turned." Francis snorted shaking his head.

"That's funny considerin I never once saw his face that red." Ellis said as he started to think about it.

"That's because you were too busy listening to what he was saying to actually see the look on his face most of the time." Francis told him.

Ellis frowned still trying to remember a time when he had seen Nick's face as red as Francis had said, but he ended up shaking his head unable to remember one time when that was true.

"I don't know, Francis. I'm pretty sure Nick really did hate me."

"Well, you're going to get your proof now." Francis told him making Ellis look at him.

"What are you talking about?" Ellis asked.

Francis sighed as he started to feel uncomfortable.

"I didn't want you to kill yourself so I told your other 'boyfriend' that you had left the safe room and also that you had jumped off the bridge so he's running as fast as he can to save you before you drown." Francis told him.

Ellis's whole face was bright red.

"Francis, he ain't my b-boyfriend and what do you mean by 'other'?" Ellis asked.

Francis looked at him sadly again.

"I really did like you a lot, Ellis. I knew that I was most likely going to die so I kissed you just before we left the safe room to at least let you know that I cared about you more then just a friend. I guess maybe I shouldn't have done that and you wouldn't have tried to kill yourself." Francis explained.

"Hey, you already told me to not blame mahself so don't do it to yerself either. It wouldn't have mattered anyway since all I had been feelin lately was depression and loneliness." Ellis told him still red, "but, I have to admit even though I hadn't known you for long I was starting to get attached."

"Yeah, I noticed."

"Nah, man. I mean like the way you were with me." Ellis whispered.

"So, even if I hadn't….you still would have…." Francis looked at him in surprise.

Ellis nodded.

"Did you even know that, that Nick guy was there with you?" Francis asked.

Ellis shook his head sadly.

"You had just…and I was losin it, man. I didn't know what to do. I even forgot that Zoey was still there and needed help. I wasn't aware of anything after that. The last thing I kinda remember was Nick helpin me up which still doesn't make sense to me cause just before you showed up…"

"Your life flashed before your eyes? Or at least the past couple of days? I kinda figured because that happened to me too." Francis replied.

"You think that what I saw…was what really happened even though I don't remember any of it?" Ellis asked.

Francis nodded.

"I guess you're not going to believe it until you actually see it for yourself. Ellis, I hate to say this but trust me, he needs you right now. Unless you're willing to let him get himself killed because he couldn't save you then by all means stay." Francis said.

Ellis's eyes went wide with fear and Francis smiled slightly at him.

"That's what I thought. I'm going to miss you, man. Just promise me I won't see you again for a very long time, not that I don't want to or nothing and especially promise me that you won't try and kill yourself again." Francis said looking at him seriously.

Ellis didn't reply as he ran up and hugged him tightly. Francis blushed hugging him back.

"Oh yeah also tell Louis that I forgive him for being an ass before." Francis said as they let go of each other.

Ellis nodded.

"So, where are you going to go?" Ellis asked.

Francis shrugged.

"I'm hoping I can find the old man somewhere around here. I've missed pissing him off." Francis grinned.

Ellis looked at him confused.

"Is it Bill that y'all were talking about before?" Ellis asked.

Francis nodded.

"Yeah. Anyway if I were you I'd get back in my body as soon as I can." Francis said.

"Ok, but how do I do that?" Ellis asked.

Francis suddenly realized what would have to happen to get Ellis back into his body as his eyebrow and upper lip started twitching.

"Francis?" Ellis asked again.

"ELLIS!"

Ellis jumped out of surprise as he heard someone yelling out his name. He looked down and finally realized that he and Francis had been hovering over the bridge. He watched wide eyed as Nick came into view and quickly took off his jacket and threw it on the bridge. Nick had run out of breath by the time he made it to the bridge and barely had time to catch his breath before he climbed over the railing and jumped into the water after Ellis. At first Nick struggled to keep himself underwater because the water was freezing and he knew that he hadn't had a lot of time to breathe, but the thought of Ellis drowning only made him deal with it and forced him to keep swimming down in search of the young man. It was hard to see underwater as Nick frantically looked around for him. He started to panic wondering just how far down Ellis was and if he was even looking in the right spot. Nick gritted his teeth trying really hard to keep himself from swallowing any water, but unfortunately a small air bubble escaped from his lips.

'No. I'm not swimming back up without Ellis in my arms.' Nick told himself as he stubbornly continued to swim downward.

That was when he saw him. Ellis's arms were floating almost in front of him and his mouth was still slightly open allowing water to continue to enter his body if it wasn't full already. He had almost reached the bottom just as Nick reached out and grabbed a hold of the back of Ellis's bull shifters shirt and pulled him up towards him. Nick wrapped his right arm around him and started swimming back towards the surface. Just as he thought he was about to swallow a lot of water, Nick's head broke through the surface of the water. He started coughing and immediately pulled Ellis's head above the water. Nick managed to find a way to get back on top of the bridge as he swam towards it, still holding tightly to Ellis, and started climbing up. He pushed Ellis until he was finally back on the bridge. As soon as Ellis was safely on it, Nick climbed until he was finally next to him and immediately pulled him further away from the water as he was catching his breath. He already knew that Ellis wasn't breathing so Nick right away started CPR. He plugged Ellis's nose and put his mouth against his and started breathing air into his body. Ellis's chest rose then fell every time he did that and then switched to pushing on his chest. This continued for almost a minute.

"Ellis, please you have to…" Nick breathed as he breathed air into Ellis's lungs again, "…you have to come back man. You can't…"

Nick stopped to look at Ellis's face as his bottom lip started quivering.

"You can't leave me here alone, overalls." Nick whispered.

Nick continued trying to revive Ellis for several minutes, but still Ellis had shown no signs of life left in him. His lips had already turned blue and Nick started to wonder if hypothermia already got to him or if he had already drowned. He could no longer stop the tears that were threatening to fall.

"Oh god, Ellis. Please don't…" Nick begged as he lifted Ellis's upper body and held him close to him.

Nick's left arm cradled him while his right hand supported Ellis's head as his thumb caressed Ellis's cheek. Nick was shaking not only because he was cold, but because he was already starting to hurt as he looked at Ellis's closed eyes. Nick moved his right arm down to hold Ellis's body and he gently started shaking him.

"Overalls, this is a joke right? You're just trying to prove that I care. Well you're right, Ellis just please wake up already." Nick whispered.

The wind continued to blow softly around them making Nick start to shiver. He reached for his jacket and started putting it around Ellis.

"You must be freezing out here. I'll get you back to the safe house." Nick said as he slowly stood up with Ellis still in his arms.

Rochelle and Zoey had been watching and at that moment Zoey burst into tears and clung on to Rochelle who was also on the verge of breaking down herself as they both held on to each other. They started making their way back to the safe house. Ellis watched completely shocked and extremely worried about Nick that he turned to look at Francis for help.

"So what am I supposed to do to get back in my body?" Ellis asked.

"I thought for sure doing CPR would have worked." Francis said.

"What?"

"Never mind now we're doing things my way. We're going to force you back into your body now come on!" Francis told him as they followed right behind Nick.

"How?" Ellis asked looking at him.

"You're going to be the one to push out all of that water that's in your body. It's not going to be easy, but since Nick did try CPR I bet you anything that the water is still stuck inside your lungs which doesn't seem to want to come out probably because you drank the entire river!" Francis said sarcastically.

"No I didn't!"

Francis sighed.

"Kid, ever heard of sarcasm? Look I'll try to get Nick to do CPR again while you are actually in your body this time. While he's kissing you, you force out as much water as you can alright?" Francis explained clearly noticing the confused look on Ellis's face.

Ellis blushed.

"Oh, so that's…"

"CPR yeah. Ok enough talking let's get to it!" Francis exclaimed.

Coach and Louis looked up the moment the girls walked in the door. Louis looked at them worriedly as Zoey was crying and Rochelle was doing her best to stop herself from crying as well, but the tears still fell from her face.

"Did you guys find…"

"Yeah, Nick's with him." Rochelle replied and went to her and Zoey's bedroom and shut the door.

Coach sighed already knowing what had happened.

"Louis, if you don't mind I'm going to sleep on the floor in your room for tonight alright?" Coach asked.

"Sure, man. Feel free to sleep on the bed instead. I guess I'll just stay here and wait for Nick to show up." Louis said wondering if he should just 'keep watch' for the rest of the night.

Coach nodded and went towards Louis's room. Louis sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall as he looked at the door waiting for Nick to arrive. It was only a few minutes before Nick showed up with Ellis in his arms. He walked by Louis who was looking at him worriedly and went immediately toward his bedroom. Nick laid Ellis back in bed and pulled the covers over him to help keep him warm with Ellis still wearing Nick's jacket. The tears continued to fall down his face as he looked at Ellis who looked like he was only sleeping and lied down on top of the comforters next to him.

"Nick…"

Nick couldn't stop himself from crying as he tried to keep it down just to make sure no one heard him.

"Ellis." Nick whispered.

Author's notes: Yes I know Nick is totally out of character in this chapter, but I kinda needed him to be for it to work. Yes Ellis is dead, but will be revived right away in the next chapter thanks to Francis's so called idea. Yeah I know I updated a day early, but hey I couldn't hold myself back any longer so I guess I'll update when I feel like it lol still there will be a couple of more chapters this weekend. How many? I don't know anymore. Please leave me a review because this is the chapter that I'm hoping gets a lot of reviews since I was so anxiously awaiting the day that I wrote this chapter. Finally the number of hits to my story is working again. I was worried that something might have happened. Anyway I'm going to be a bit busy this weekend since its one of my friends' birthdays and ive been invited to attend so I don't know how long I'll be there. It's on Saturday so yeah. I hope I finish this story soon because im looking forward to posting that poll that I've been talking about a lot.


	14. Revival

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

"Shit, Nick. You ain't supposed ta cry." Ellis whispered to himself as he looked down at him worriedly.

"Ellis, just get back in your body already because I need you to be ready the moment I tell him to do CPR on you again." Francis told him and rolled his eyes the moment Ellis blushed, "Not the time man just do it."

Ellis took one last look at Nick, who was now desperately clinging to him as his head was resting against Ellis's and his left arm was over Ellis's body protectively, before he tried to re-enter his body.

"Sorry about this, overalls, but that water was fucking freezing and it just looks like my jacket and the comforter isn't doing much to warm you up." Nick said still in denial that Ellis had died.

"Nick, I need you to listen to me for a sec alright?" Francis said hoping that Nick still was able to hear him. To his relief and annoyance Nick snorted.

"What do you want now?" Nick asked.

"I need you to try and revive him again." Francis replied.

Nick winced as he still continued to look at Ellis.

"He's just sleeping. That's all he's doing." Nick said.

Francis sighed.

"You know that isn't true. Nick, you have to trust me. I'm trying to help get the kid back in his body. If you want him back as much as I think you do then just listen to me." Francis said.

Nick didn't respond for several seconds until he finally sat up and removed the covers off of Ellis and took off his jacket. He then moved to hover on top of him and once again plugged Ellis's nose and put his mouth against his.

"Ellis, push out as much water as you can NOW!" Francis told him.

Just as he thought that this was going to work, since he could see a little bit of water come out of Ellis's mouth, someone came into the room.

"Nick, just what the hell do you think yer doin?" Coach asked as he went towards him and started pulling him away from Ellis.

"Fuck, Coach, let me go! Ellis is…"

"He's dead boy! Ro told me what happened at the bridge. You already tried reviving him and it didn't work! I had a bad feeling that this was gunna happen so I came in here to…" Coach told him.

Nick turned and looked at him in horror.

"You were going to just take him?" Nick yelled.

Coach sighed as he called for Louis.

"Nick, he's gone and he's not coming back." Coach told him and then looked at Louis, "Get the boy. Might as well do it sooner rather then later."

Nick struggled to get out of Coach's grip as he watched Louis go over to Ellis's side of the bed and started to pick him up.

"No…NO!" Nick screamed, "Don't you fucking touch him!"

"Nick, the longer you keep holding on to him the harder it will be to let him go. That's why we need to do this as soon as possible." Coach said restraining him.

"You're not fucking burying him! I won't let you!" Nick growled.

Louis shook his head and looked at Ellis's body sadly.

"Poor kid I didn't think he'd take Francis's death so hard. I'm sorry I really am, but if I had the chance to make sure Bill and Francis were at rest then I would have buried them." Louis said as he looked up at Nick.

Louis started making his way out of the bedroom just as Nick exploded with anger as he finally broke free of Coach's grip sending him hitting hard against the wall. Nick rushed forward and forcefully grabbed Ellis away from Louis.

"YOU'RE NOT FUCKING TAKING HIM AWAY FROM ME!" Nick roared.

The anger and loudness of Nick's voice sent shivers down Louis's spine as he winced.

"Nick, don't make me knock you out!" Coach growled as he stood up and glared angrily at him.

"Coach, what on earth are you doing?" Rochelle asked as she and Zoey entered the room having already heard the conversation from their room, "Ellis just died and you won't even let Nick have some time with him?"

"He's not dead!" Nick yelled.

"Ro, you know how its gotta be." Coach said looking at her.

Rochelle sighed.

"Yes I know, but you don't have to bury him right now. Can't you wait until morning?"

"No because Nick will refuse even more to the idea of us burying the kid." Coach said.

"Well, what did you expect? Nick loves him." Rochelle said.

Nick's face started turning red and it got really awkward in the room. Zoey took one look at Ellis and immediately ran back to her room and closed the door. Coach sighed and shook his head.

"Fine. I don't like it, but fine. Nick you have until mornin alright?" Coach said.

Louis and Coach left the room leaving Rochelle to look at Nick worried.

"Nick, I know this must be hurting you a lot, but Coach does have a point. We need to keep going and I know Ellis wouldn't want you to keep torturing yourself over him." Rochelle said, "Look I'll make sure both Coach and Louis leave you alone, but Nick we will have to bury him before we leave tomorrow."

Rochelle left the room and gently shut the door behind her. Nick gently laid Ellis back on the bed and resumed trying to revive him. Francis started to worry wondering if Ellis still had the strength to push out all the water that was still in his body. He sighed with relief when he saw Ellis cough up water and Nick quickly turned him on his side to make it easier for him to let it all out.

"Ellis…" Nick whispered.

After a few seconds Ellis finally finished as he turned back to lie on his back and looked up breathing hard. His vision was still slightly blurry, but he already knew who he was looking at.

"Nick…" Ellis said.

Nick lifted him up and pulled him into an embrace. Ellis continued to look at him as Nick put his right hand behind Ellis's head.

"You scared the hell out of me, Ellis." Nick said a smile slowly spreading on his face.

Ellis swallowed as he started feeling guilty.

"I'm sorry man. I-I didn't know…" Ellis was cut off as Nick kissed him.

Ellis melted into it as he slowly put his arms around him and kissed him back. Nick grinned.

"Don't you ever do that again." Nick told him.

Ellis nodded shaking from how cold he still was. Nick had them both get under the comforter and he continued holding Ellis tightly in his arms. They both started feeling warmth spread throughout their bodies despite the fact that they both were still sopping wet.

"I need you here, Ellis. I don't want you going anywhere." Nick said.

"I wont, Nick. I'll still be here when you wake up." Ellis replied.

"Who says I'm going to sleep tonight?" Nick asked.

Ellis looked at him worried.

"Nick, I…"

"It's not that, overalls. I just want to see that you're still breathing." Nick told him.

Ellis nodded as he snuggled against him.

"Hey, Nick?"

"Yeah?"

"If I hadn't come back would you have…" Ellis looked back up at him.

Nick frowned slightly.

"Would I have what, overalls?" Nick asked.

"Would you have tried to…"

Nick looked at him for a few seconds.

"No, I would have been depressed as all hell, but no." Nick replied.

Ellis already knew that he was lying since Nick had hesitated before he answered and the look on his face had already given it away.

"That's good cause I wouldn't have wanted you to do that just cause I did." Ellis said hugging him tighter.

"Yeah…" Nick whispered.

Ellis soon found himself drifting off since he was really tired after having been dead then brought back to life and couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. He finally fell asleep and dreamt of his mom and friends smiling at him and telling him that they were happy to know that he was ok and that he was with someone who really cared about him. That was also when he saw Francis hanging around an older man and was obviously pissing him off. Francis had seen him and grinned.

"Take care of yourself now, Ellis." Francis said.

"You too, Francis. Thank you." Ellis replied.

Just before Ellis woke up he heard the old man say 'so that's the kid you were talking about.' He heard voices coming from the other room and the first thing he noticed was that Nick wasn't there beside him. He frowned as he slowly started to sit up feeling much warmer then he had last night. He watched as the door was opened and Rochelle looked in with a smile on her face.

"Oh, Ellis, sweetie you're alright!" Rochelle said as she went towards him and gave him a hug.

Zoey ran in next and practically threw herself at him and hugged him tight as soon as Rochelle had let go of him.

"I was so worried, Ellis! I didn't want to lose someone else!" Zoey cried as she kissed him on the cheek.

Ellis smiled and hugged her back.

"I'm sorry y'all for scaring you like that."

"We understand, Ellis. I just wish you knew that we were here that way we could have helped you." Rochelle said.

"It wouldn't have mattered. Nick would have taken care of him the entire time anyway." Zoey said making Ellis blush.

"Uh…"

There was a coughing noise and both girls and Ellis watched as Nick looked at Zoey completely annoyed.

"Oh sorry I'll get out of your way now." Zoey giggled as she let go of Ellis and ran right out of the room.

Rochelle shook her head smiling and also left. Finally Coach and Louis came into the room.

"You doin alright there, Ellis?" Coach asked looking at him guiltily.

"Yeah, I'm alright." Ellis said looking at him, "What is it, Coach?"

"I'm sorry. I thought you were gone and I kept insisting that we had to bury you and…"

"Coach, I'm the one who needs to apologize. I haven't exactly been mahself lately…"

"Boy, you got nuthin to apologize for." Coach said, "I'm just glad to see that yer alive. Nick here was the only one who knew that you were still with us."

"Obviously, I never heard someone get that mad before." Louis said shaking his head, "He really didn't want us to bury you that's for sure."

Both Ellis and Nick turned red.

"Well, uh I guess we'll go fill up the car. Nick if you don't mind." Coach said looking at him.

Nick tossed him his wallet and watched as Coach left the room.

"Louis, wait. Francis wanted me to tell you that he forgives you for being an ass before." Ellis said.

Louis smiled at him.

"Thanks, Ellis. I guess next time I see him I'll 'thank' him properly. Knowing us we'll probably just start fighting again." Louis chuckled and followed after Coach.

Once they left, Nick re-entered the room and sat down on the bed next to Ellis and looked at him.

"How are you feeling?" Nick asked.

"Better then last night. Thanks Nick, y'know for savin mah life." Ellis said smiling at him.

"Don't thank me, Ellis. It was Francis who told me that you left the safe house and where you were headed." Nick replied.

"Yeah, but you were the one who pulled me from the water and was the one who stopped Coach from burying me. By the way how did that go down anyway?" Ellis asked.

"You don't want to know." Nick said.

"Nick?"

"No, Ellis so stop giving me that look. Let's just say that I was mad enough to kill someone." Nick sighed.

"It was really that bad that you can't talk about it?" Ellis asked frowning slightly.

"Yeah it was. Ellis I know we're all getting tired of these apologies right about now, but you need to know that I'm sorry that I acted like I hated you and made you think that you were a burden, but the truth is, is that you were the one who kept everyone going. You were always optimistic about everything, you got along with everyone, you had ways of cheering Rochelle or Coach up when they were down, you saved us many times when we were in trouble, healed us when we were hurt and most of all kept us as a team." Nick said looking at Ellis with a small smile on his face.

"What do you mean by that last part, Nick?" Ellis asked.

"I mean Coach and I don't get along. Like at all. He wants one thing I want something else. He looks out for the whole group I look out only for myself. He wants us to stick together as a group and at first I wanted…well we're complete opposites. If you weren't here I know I'd be long gone by now either dead or alone somewhere. If anyone's the burden here it's me." Nick replied.

Ellis shook his head his eyes going wide.

"Nuh-uh it ain't you either, Nick. Why if it weren't for you I wouldn't be here and if it weren't for you I wouldn't have found a reason to continue living. Ro and Coach are great and all, but they're just not you. Even after meeting and getting to know Francis it still wasn't the same as being around you. When he died I thought I had no one left cause he cared about me and I thought you didn't, but the moment I found out that you did care was when I realized that I still had someone in mah life who was worth living for. Thinking about it now if it was reversed if you had died instead of Francis, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been able to save me like you did. Nick I need you just as much as you need me." Ellis told him.

Nick looked at him in surprise, but then smiled at him and hugged him tight.

"Thanks for that, overalls. Now what do you say we get ready to head on out of here because I can't stand being here any longer then how long we've already been here." Nick said.

"It was only just last night, Nick."

"Yeah, but that was the longest night I've ever had. I'm seriously thinking about sleeping in the car."

Ellis laughed making Nick grin.

"Alright, you win."

Author's notes: Next chapter is definitely the last. Oh yeah sorry I lied about Ellis being revived right away in this chapter. I kinda came up with a better idea last minute so I decided to go with this one and since the last chapter isn't going to be that big of a deal to write im just going to post the poll on my profile right away so you guys can vote on your favorite story, watch it be this one, but hey Im still curious which one actually wins. This was the longest story I have ever written with the most words, of course its only by three chapters but whatever. I'll start thinking about ideas for my next l4d story if I can come up with another good one. Anyway let me know what you thought about the entire story since its pretty much at the end. I probably wont add the last chapter till Sunday night Monday early morning because like I said im going to be busy Saturday (today).


	15. End

Listen To Your Heart

By: esmtz

As soon as they had finally arrived in San Diego and made it to the evac station, everyone was surprised to find that a lot of people had survived the infection that had spread throughout the country.

"Man, this place is full of people!" Ellis said looking around in surprise.

Nick grabbed Ellis's hand and looked at him.

"No wondering off now, overalls." Nick told him.

"Here I thought it was just the six of us who survived." Zoey said happy to know that she and Rochelle were no longer the only girls still living in the world.

"Oh man I can't wait to have some real food for once." Coach sniffed the air and smiled drooling a little bit, "Hamburgers."

Louis laughed.

"The first thing you think about is food? I just want to start living again. Find myself an apartment, get a job…." Louis said.

"Well, you're going to probably have to wait a little longer because it looks like that we need to get checked out first before we do anything." Rochelle said watching as another survivor was being checked for the infection.

Nick snorted shaking his head.

"This is stupid and you want to know why? If any of us were infected we would be trying to kill everyone here, but look I don't see anyone 'changing' and doing that."

"It's just for precaution, Nick." Rochelle told him.

"Oh, so if we do somehow have the infection, but we're not affected by it, they're just going to shoot us the moment they find even a trace of it in us?" Nick asked.

Rochelle sighed.

"I don't think they…"

"We all thought the same thing right, Zoey? You, me, Francis, and Bill." Louis said looking at her.

Zoey nodded.

"Yeah, to be honest its great to see that there's a lot of people here, but I don't trust the people who are running this center and trying to see if any of us are 'infected'." Zoey replied.

"Why would you? It looks like they don't give a rat's ass since they didn't even bother trying to help any of us out before. They just left us to either die or to fend for ourselves. Either way they're a bunch of fucking assholes is what they are." Nick said glaring at the people who looked like they worked there.

"At least we're safe now, Nick. I'd rather be here then be thrown back out where all the zombies 'n shit are at." Ellis said looking at him.

Nick sighed.

"Yeah, I know. I just hate the fact that Ceda and anyone else who could have helped us were ok with losing most of the population."

"Well, looks like it's our turn to be examined." Louis said as he saw a guy in a white suit motion for them to follow him.

It took almost an hour after everyone was tested when the results came back. They all sighed with relief when they heard that they all were clean.

"Woulda been a nightmare if we had to watch one of us get shot." Ellis said relieved.

"I thought for sure Nick might have been infected." Louis said.

Nick glared at him.

"What makes you say that?" Nick asked.

"Well, for one you're just as violent as the infected when they're getting ready to attack you and two you seriously have anger management issues." Louis told him.

Nick gritted his teeth.

"You and Coach were trying to take Ellis to bury him so yeah you guys were pissing me off and you want to know why I'm always pissed? It's because assholes like Ceda think that it's ok to leave people to die and to not worry about it."

"I sure as hell wouldn't want them shootin Nick. I'd kill them mahself if I had to." Ellis said.

"Of course you would, Ellis." Rochelle smiled at him.

"Hell he'd probably jump in front of him to keep Nick from gettin killed." Coach said still looking for where the smell of hamburgers was coming from.

"Well, hey I'm clean so there's no need for that besides if Ellis even tried throwing himself in front of me when they were about to shoot I'd push him away before he could even have the chance to protect me." Nick replied.

"Nick, I don't care what it takes. One way or another I will have saved yer life cause there's no way in hell that I would be ok with yer death." Ellis told him looking at him seriously.

Nick groaned.

"How do you think I felt, Ellis?"

"How do you guys think Francis felt?" Louis asked making both of them shut up.

"Well, guys at least we don't have to worry about the zombie apocalypse. Not so much anyway." Zoey said.

"Hope not. I was getting really tired of killing zombies and worrying about if all of us were going to live or die everyday." Rochelle said looking at her.

"I wasn't. I was actually havin fun until it got to where…never mind. I'd rather be here anyway." Ellis said.

"So when are we going to be able to leave from here and live in the part of the city where humanity still is?" Nick asked.

Coach shrugged.

"Hell if I know, boy. As long as there's tons of food here I'm good." Coach said.

"Maybe you are, but I would actually like a place to live and be able to do my own thing." Nick sighed.

"Uh, Nick?"

"Yeah you're coming with me, overalls since its obvious I can't let you out of my sight for even a second." Nick replied.

Ellis smiled and hugged him.

"You better take good care of him, Nick." Coach told him.

Rochelle giggled.

"He'll be fine, Coach. Nick's good at looking after him."

"Uh, you know what? Take care of each other because if anything happens to either one of you…well you guys already know." Louis said.

"Yeah, I don't want to go through that again. It was bad enough already." Nick said looking at Ellis and held on to his hand tightly.

Ellis squeezed back and smiled at him.

"I love you, Nick." Ellis said.

Nick blushed as he struggled to say it back to him.

"Yeah, uh…I….love you too, Ellis." Nick replied.

Everyone laughed.

"Was that really so hard to get out, Nick?" Rochelle teased.

Nick turned redder as he glared at her.

"Shut up!"

"Aw, he cares how cute!" Zoey giggled.

They all grinned when Ellis snuggled against Nick making him stop what he was going to say and looked away feeling completely embarrassed.

"Now, what was that about doin yer own thing, Nick? Cause it looks like Ellis has you completely tied to him." Coach laughed.

Nick glared at him.

"Don't you guys have anything better to do then to make fun of me?"

"Hey, Coach? If you're still lookin for where those hamburgers were at they're over there." Ellis said pointing them out to him.

Coach turned licking his lips.

"Too good to refuse." Coach said and headed over to where people were serving food to the survivors.

"You know I am kinda hungry." Louis said looking at both girls.

"Oh yeah starving." Zoey replied.

"We'll just leave you two alone now." Rochelle said and followed right behind Louis and Zoey.

Nick shook his head.

"They leave the moment you say something."

"Well, they were botherin you." Ellis replied.

"Thanks. Y'know, Ellis it's kinda hard for me to….y'know."

"Yeah seein as you don't really open up a lot, but I know how we can fix that." Ellis grinned.

Nick looked at him in horror the moment he figured out what he was talking about.

"Ellis, no. Not again. I do not want to see or feel you not…"

Ellis pressed his lips against Nick's shutting him up instantly. Ellis grinned.

"Well, I don't know what you were talkin about, but mah idea was…"

Nick, having turned red and was turning redder, quickly put his hand over Ellis's mouth.

"You don't have to say anything, overalls. I get it. Just not here." Nick said removing his hand.

"Well, of course not here are you crazy? I was thinkin findin us a room somewhere."

"Ellis, I hate to break it to you, but I don't think there's any rooms here since everyone is just spread out everywhere with blankets tossed on the floor or there's very little and they're already taken." Nick told him.

Ellis thought for a second.

"Well, what was yer idea?" Ellis asked.

"Oh hell no! I'm finding us a room even if it means leaving the building to go find it somewhere else." Nick said as he got up and started searching the building.

Ellis laughed.

'He's funny. Sometimes I get him and sometimes I don't, but he really didn't need to get up and go look for a room. I guess I shoulda told him that we coulda used the car, but I don't think the others would be too happy with us if we told them what we did in it.'

THE END

Author's notes: Yeah I know shorter chapter, but hey technically the last chapter could have easily have been the last one so this chapter wasn't really necessary unless you wanted to know what happened when they got to San Diego. The poll is now on my profile at the very top so feel free to vote. It'll still be there until I've made a new story and then it will be gone. Also wanted to say happy 4th of July. Hope you guys had a good one. I still haven't come up with any good L4D story ideas yet (1 but it kinda sucks), so hopefully when I see more NickxEllis stories in the future it might help to inspire me. If I still can't come up with anything then I'm done. I'll just move on to something else or continue from another topic that I have written for before (Naruto, Pokemon, etc). Anyway thank you everyone for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and adding to story alert and maybe you'll read another story of mine again in the future.

-esmtz aka Sarah


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